I Can Help You There
by MiaRoseT
Summary: On his first train journey to Hogwarts, Albus Potter gets into conversation with a boy with blond hair. They've never met before, but they find that they have a lot in common.
1. I Can Help You There

**Disclaimer: As usual, all characters belong to J.K. Rowling.**

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><p><span>I Can Help You There<span>

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><p>Albus Potter brushed a stray piece of black hair away from his face and sat back in his seat. The train compartment of the Hogwarts Express that he was sharing with his cousin Rose was now almost completely silent, apart from the gentle noise of the train's engine.<p>

He looked over at Rose, who was sleeping peacefully in the seat next to him, her head resting on her arms and her face almost completely covered by her long red hair.

When the train had first pulled out of the station about twenty minutes ago, they must have spent at least ten minutes jumping up and down in excitement and shouting, "We're going to Hogwarts!" over and over again. After the initial euphoria had worn off, they had spent the next ten minutes trying to calm themselves down by comparing their extensive collections of Chocolate Frog Cards. However, the lack of sleep the night before had finally caught up with Rose and she had eventually sat back in her seat and drifted off, still surrounded by numerous cards which had fallen all over the floor and seats.

As Albus felt the cooling breeze from the open window drifting into the compartment, he too felt his eyelids getting heavier. Like Rose, he had been unable to sleep the night before, choosing instead to pace around his room, overcome with nerves about his first day.

His usual fears about going to Hogwarts had invaded his thoughts as he stood looking out of his bedroom window: What if he was sorted into Slytherin House and his family was upset and disappointed? What if he was teased by other students because he wasn't as cool as his older brother James? What if the teachers didn't like him because he wasn't as intelligent as his cousin?

He had felt slightly reassured by his father's parting words to him on Platform 9 ¾, but now that he was sitting in silence in the compartment, his worries were slowly starting to come back, preventing him from getting the sleep that he craved.

He had just managed to force his eyelids shut and take a deep breath when he was startled by the sudden noise of the compartment door sliding open. His eyes jerked open and he looked over to his right.

Standing in the doorway was a boy with pale skin and hair so blond that it was almost white. He had already changed into his school robes, yet despite his elegant appearance, Albus noticed that his cheeks were slightly flushed and he wore an almost apologetic expression on his face.

"Do you mind?" the blond boy asked nervously, gesturing towards the empty seats opposite Albus. "It's just that everywhere else appears to be full…and I don't know anybody yet, with it being my first day."

"Be my guest," Albus responded, pleased at the opportunity to meet a fellow first year. "It's my first day, too."

He tried to smile encouragingly at the blond boy, who still looked uneasy as he walked slowly into the compartment and towards the seat directly opposite Albus.

"Thanks," the blond mumbled as soon as he sat down.

Albus noticed that the boy was holding a book with a brown and red cover in his right hand. His eyes darted discreetly from Albus to the book, as though he was trying to decide whether he should make conversation or simply sit there reading. As soon as he caught Albus looking back at him, he seemed to decide that it was easier to just look out of the window instead.

Deciding that the boy was definitely shy rather than anti-social, Albus tried to think of something to say to start a conversation. He noticed that the boy was now surveying the Chocolate Frog Cards that were scattered all over the seat by the window with a curious expression on his face.

"Do you collect them, too?" Albus asked him, pointing to the cards.

"Yes," the boy responded, sounding a lot more relaxed now that Albus had started talking to him. "Although…I doubt I have as many as you do," he grinned.

"Most of these are just copies of cards that me and my cousin have already," Albus shrugged, pointing to a pile of cards and then to his sleeping cousin in the seat by the window. "I mean, we've already got at least ten Neville Longbottom cards between us. Feel free to take one, if you need it."

"I could swap it for one of mine," the blond replied eagerly, taking a pile of cards out of his robes pocket. He took a card from the bottom of the pile and held it out in front of Albus. "I've already got about fifty of this one."

Albus didn't even need to read the name at the top; he already knew who it was just by looking at the moving picture in the middle of the card. He couldn't help laughing slightly as he shook his head.

"Oh no, it's okay," he told the boy. "I don't need that card; I can see him in person whenever I want." Noticing the obvious confusion that was written all over the boy's face, Albus added: "He's my father."

"Oh…" the boy responded.

Albus took a deep breath and waited for the usual widening of the eyes followed by the excited questions that were always asked whenever a stranger found out that Harry Potter was his dad. However, to his surprise (and relief) the boy did neither of those things. Instead he sat back in his seat, a thoughtful expression on his face. He looked right at Albus, who suddenly felt as though the boy was trying to read his thoughts.

"It must be quite strange…" the blond boy finally said, his voice full of hesitation as though he was debating whether he should actually say anything at all. "What I mean is, it must be strange seeing pictures of your father on cards or in books, especially when you know him as a person and not as a celebrity."

"I suppose..." Albus shrugged, surprised that the boy was actually thinking about how it might feel for him to have a parent who was so well-known. He could tell most people just assumed that he and his siblings had grown up with a lot of money and without any of the usual worries of other witches and wizards. "Although, to be honest, I don't really think about it that much. My parents never wanted us to read books or newspaper articles about them and we've kind of grown up away from all of that. My dad won't even tell me the exact details of _why _he's so famous in the Wizarding World. Whenever I used to ask him about it, he always said that he would tell me when I was older."

"My dad says that to me _all _the time," the blond boy told him with a sigh.

The two boys looked at each other and rolled their eyes. They laughed as they realised that they had just done it at exactly the same time. They lapsed back into silence for a few minutes, although this time the silence was definitely more comfortable.

"You know," the blond boy eventually broke the silence, "one time, I saw a picture of my dad in the _Daily Prophet_ too…"

"Really?" Albus asked, the curiosity evident in his voice.

"Yes…" the boy responded, the hesitation back in his voice as though he was wrestling with the desperation to share this particular story with Albus and the fear of revealing private information. "I was only eight years old at the time. I was over at my grandparents' house and for some reason I ended up sneaking upstairs to play in the spare room. I started searching through a box of old newspapers and all of a sudden I came across this copy of the _Daily Prophet_ with a huge picture of my dad on the front. Anyway, my grandmother chose that moment to walk into the room and she took it away from me. I had no idea what it was about and I knew that there would be no point asking Mum or Dad about it, I knew they wouldn't tell me-they're quite over-protective…"

Albus noticed that a blush had crept back to the boy's cheeks.

"What I mean is, it's not like they won't let me do anything, they just worry about certain things…I'm their only child….and sometimes people say things, when we're out in public, that they don't want me to hear-"

"My whole family's really protective over me," Albus interrupted him, uncomfortable at seeing the boy looking so embarrassed when personally he felt that there was nothing wrong with having a protective family. He knew that if his grandmother had had her way, he would never have been allowed to fly on a broomstick when he was only three years old or play any games with his older cousins that were even slightly dangerous.

The boy smiled gratefully at him and shifted the book that he was holding into his other hand. Albus was able to see the title written across the front cover: _Hogwarts: A History_.

"Oh no," he mumbled as the blond looked at him with concern, "I _knew_ that I'd forgotten to pack something. I had that book laid out in my room ready to put in my trunk this morning as well…and I hadn't even started reading it…"

"Don't worry about it," the blond shrugged, "you can borrow this if you want, I already have most of it memorised."

Albus looked at him in shock. "Seriously?" he asked him, his eyes wide.

"Yes." The blond grinned sheepishly. "This and most of our first year textbooks."

Albus was reminded forcefully of his cousin Rose, who had also been attempting to memorise all of her school books over the summer.

"Don't worry," the blond told him reassuringly, "I know that the other students won't have done that, it's just a particular talent of mine for some reason. I've always loved reading and I remember things easily."

"I think you're going to give Rosie a run for her money in the exams next year…" Albus muttered with a grin on his face. "Your parents must be really proud though, having a son who's so intelligent."

"I think they're surprised more than anything," the boy laughed. "Especially my dad, he always tells me that he expected his son would be a complete rebel who constantly tried to defy his authority, or at the very least I would try to steal his broomstick and sneak out to play Quidditch at night!"

The two boys shared another grin but then the blond seemed to think of something.

"Not that I don't like things like Quidditch," he said hurriedly. "It's just that I always seemed to prefer reading books by myself or playing Wizard's Chess against my grandfather when I was younger, something which always amazed my dad."

"The last time I played Wizard's Chess was about five years ago when my brother James beat me ten times in a row," Albus told him. "After that, it was just too humiliating to play again…"

The blond laughed at this story and Albus felt himself grinning again. He couldn't believe that he felt so relaxed and at ease with somebody who he had only just met. It felt nice to be able to have such an open conversation with a boy his own age without having to worry about saying something that sounded uncool or overly sensitive. Albus loved his brother James, but whenever he was around him he always felt that he had to hide his emotions for fear that his brother would make fun of him. Yet as he relaxed in the train compartment with this boy, he felt as though he could tell him anything and he wouldn't judge him or look down on him.

"So, you don't think that your dad was like you when he was at Hogwarts?" Albus asked, breaking another comfortable silence.

"I highly doubt it," the blond responded. "Personally, I think that he was a bit of a rebel when he was at school, although he'd never tell me that directly for fear that I'd try to imitate him. I mean, he has this scar across his chest and once I overheard him saying that he got it from a fight when he was younger. Oh…and he has a _tattoo _on his arm!"

"Does he really?" Albus asked, unable to hide his disbelief that the calm, intelligent boy sitting opposite him could possibly have a father with not only a scar across his chest but also a tattoo. He thought of his own father with his small scar on his forehead, but somehow that seemed to pale in comparison to the description of this boy's father.

"What does his tattoo look like?" Albus asked eagerly.

"I'm not really sure to be honest." The boy rolled his eyes again. "He keeps it covered most of the time and whenever I ask him what it's supposed to be he just says, '_You'll understand when you're older'_."

Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the witch pushing the food trolley. They purchased drinks, pumpkin pasties and several Chocolate Frogs.

James (no doubt on their parents' strict orders) briefly looked into the compartment to check on Albus. Albus was secretly very grateful that James smiled over at the blond boy and spoke to the two of them politely rather than capitalising on the audience in the compartment as an opportunity to make fun of his younger brother.

After James had left and they had sat there happily eating and drinking for a while, the conversation turned to their arrival at Hogwarts.

"Which House do you think you'll be sorted into?" the blond asked.

Albus shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I'm not really sure…everyone in my family has always been sorted into Gryffindor, so I suppose they'll expect the same of me. I always thought that it would be the worst thing ever to be sorted into Slytherin, but after speaking to my dad earlier I've decided that maybe it wouldn't be too bad, even though my brother might never speak to me again…"

The two boys laughed but then the blond boy's expression became more serious.

"Everybody in my family has always been in Slytherin," he told Albus. "So I suppose there's every chance that I might be too. I asked my dad about it this morning and he said that he doesn't care what House I'm sorted into as long as I stay out of trouble and make sure I write to him and Mum at least once a week. I think my grandfather would be upset though, if I wasn't put in Slytherin. In fact, only last night he said something about disinheriting me if I was sorted into any other House…"

Albus realised that the shock must have been written all over his face as the boy quickly continued, "I'm pretty sure that he was joking though-at least, I think he was. He says stuff like that all the time but I just laugh because I'm so used to it. My dad and grandmother gave him their usual warning glances across the dinner table as soon as he started his pro-Slytherin speech, so I didn't get the chance to ask him if he meant it."

"It sounds like you have a very interesting family," Albus concluded with a grin.

The boy looked at him and laughed. He then sat in silence for a few seconds before he continued with the conversation.

"Well, at the risk of your brother never speaking to you again, if I _am_ sorted into Slytherin, it might be nice if you and your cousin were too, it would be good to know people in there already."

"Well, the same for you if Rose and I are sorted into Gryffindor," Albus replied.

"You never know," said the blond, "we might defy everyone and be sorted into Hufflepuff!"

"If that does happen…" Albus asked, "_please_ can I be around when you write the letter to your grandfather to break the news to him?"

The blond widened his eyes at Albus for a second before he burst into laughter.

"Yes, definitely! Although…you _would_ have to promise not to laugh when he sends an inevitable Howler back to me!"

"Okay, I'll try my best to look sympathetic if and when that happens," Albus promised him.

As the sky outside the train window gradually got darker, their conversation turned to other topics. Rose had briefly woken up and spoken to the blond boy about their new school books and the few spells that she already knew, but she had dozed off again as soon as the two boys got into a detailed conversation about their favourite Quidditch teams and the matches that they had been to see with their families.

"Do you play Quidditch a lot?" Albus asked the boy.

"Not as much as I'd like," he confessed. "My dad taught me how to fly when I was younger but my mum's quite strict about how often I actually play. I fell off my broom a couple of years ago, which wasn't even my fault-some other boy accidently-on-purpose crashed into me with his broom, but that's another story…Anyway, since then my mum's said that she would prefer it if I waited until I was within the safety of the Hogwarts grounds before I started flying again."

"I've been playing Quidditch with my brother and my cousins since I was a baby," Albus said after a few seconds. "So, if you want to practice with us at Hogwarts, feel free…"

The boy grinned at him gratefully for the second time. For some reason, Albus couldn't help thinking that maybe this boy wasn't used to being spoken to in such a friendly way by other children his own age. Yet Albus couldn't imagine why this would be the case, especially when the boy didn't appear to be unfriendly or dramatically different to other eleven year old boys.

Albus shook off his previous thought as he suddenly had an idea. "Actually, what I meant to say is that I'll help you to improve at Quidditch on one condition…"

"Which is?" the blond raised his eyebrows at Albus questioningly.

"That you teach me how to beat my brother at Wizard's Chess!"

The blond smiled before finally replying, "Okay, I can definitely help you there."

The train was gradually slowing down. They knew that they would be arriving soon and they would have to try to wake Rose up.

Albus suddenly realised that he didn't even know the boy's name. He looked over at him and asked him what it was.

The blond boy hesitated for what seemed to Albus like an unnaturally long time before he spoke.

"I'm Scorpius…Scorpius Malfoy." Scorpius slowly lifted his hand and held it out to Albus.

Albus hesitated for a second. Where had he heard that name before? It sounded so familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. He was sure that his Uncle Ron had said something about the Malfoy family on the platform in the morning, but he had been so distracted saying goodbye to his parents that he hadn't bothered to listen.

He looked at Scorpius and was startled to see that his expression was fearful as his eyes darted nervously from his outstretched palm to Albus's own eyes, almost as if he was terrified that Albus was now going to reject his friendship.

Albus couldn't understand why the boy would even think that. Why wouldn't he be friends with Scorpius? They had just spoken happily to each other on the train for the past several hours and Albus already knew that his time at Hogwarts would be more fun if he had this boy for company.

"I'm Albus, Albus Potter."

Scorpius exhaled in relief as Albus grinned at him and stretched his palm out.

The two boys smiled at each other and shook hands.


	2. In Your Head

"_They need you…maybe a lot more than you need them."_

"I don't understand," Albus responded anxiously to the voice that had been speaking into his ear for the past several minutes. He made sure that he spoke in barely more than a whisper, so that nobody else in the Great Hall could hear what he was saying.

From the moment he had sat down on the four-legged stool close to the staff table at the front of the Great Hall and Professor Longbottom had placed the Sorting Hat over his head, Albus Potter had felt nothing but confusion. Oh, and maybe fear too, fear and confusion all mixed together.

He knew exactly what had provoked these feelings. It had all started a few minutes ago. The Sorting Hat had barely touched his head when he had heard a low voice muttering the very words that Albus had been dreading for what felt like his whole life: _"You would do so well in Slytherin..."_

Before the Sorting Hat had said the dreaded 'S' word, everything had been going so well. He had walked into the Great Hall with his fellow first years, happy to have made it all the way to the front without doing something embarrassing like tripping over his robes. He had caught sight of his cousins and his older brother as he passed the Gryffindor table and they had all waved and smiled at him encouragingly, which had served as a comforting reminder to Albus that whatever happened this year at Hogwarts, he wouldn't be facing it alone.

As soon as they stopped walking, Albus's cousin Rose had patted him reassuringly on the shoulder and reminded him that no matter what House they were sorted into, they would always be close friends.

Scorpius Malfoy, the blond boy who Albus had befriended on the train journey to Hogwarts and who had shared a boat with him and Rose as they sailed towards the castle, was called upon to be sorted before Albus and Rose. The Sorting Hat must have deliberated for at least five minutes before it finally shouted, "Slytherin!"

Scorpius had looked slightly taken aback for a few seconds, but then he had smiled and headed off in the direction of the cheers on the right hand side of the room.

As he passed Albus and Rose, Scorpius had smiled at them and mouthed, "Good luck!" before he went to sit at the Slytherin table.

Albus had been called forward not long afterwards. There had been a great deal of whispering all around the Great Hall as soon as his surname was mentioned, something which his brother James had warned him about already. Apparently the mention of the name 'Potter' provoked a great deal of interest in the Wizarding World. As the Sorting Hat slowly covered his eyes and blurred his vision, he had been fully aware of almost every single student leaning forward to try to get a better look at him.

The only students who hadn't appeared to be staring avidly at him were those who were sitting at the Slytherin table. Half of them had still been welcoming the latest addition to their side of the room, whilst the other half seemed to be deliberately trying to look away. Albus couldn't shake off the feeling that they were already resigned to the fact that anyone with the surname 'Potter' couldn't possibly be heading anywhere near their table.

The last two things that Albus remembered seeing before everything went completely black were Rose standing on her tiptoes, trying to see her cousin over the heads of several taller first years and Scorpius leaning across his table, watching the scene with a fascinated expression on his face.

"_You have doubts, there's something here that's stopping you, I can tell…"_

Albus was snapped out of his thoughts as soon as the Sorting Hat started talking to him again. He frantically tried to think up some sort of response while at the same time trying to ignore a series of blurred images that were inexplicably appearing in front of his eyes in the darkness.

"It's everything," he whispered. "Their reputation, the things I've heard about them, my family…"

There was silence again for another minute. Albus suddenly realised that he wasn't exactly sure _why _Slytherin House still had such a bad reputation. When he thought about it, he couldn't think of one single concrete example that he could use as evidence against them.

It had always been a taboo subject amongst the few Wizarding families that his parents were friends with. Whenever the name of a previous member of Slytherin House was mentioned, they would always look at each other uneasily or mutter disapprovingly.

Then there were his brother and his cousin Fred, who right from the start had put the very basic idea into Albus's head that Gryffindor equalled good and Slytherin equalled bad.

Yet in the midst of all the mutterings and the dark looks his father had always been there, constantly telling him that he had to make his own judgments about the Wizarding World.

"_Members of your family have done great things," _the Sorting Hat finally responded. _"And you too are destined to achieve great things."_

Albus felt like he should ask some sort of question about that previous comment, but he couldn't think of anything logical to ask. He decided that maybe it was one of the many things that he would understand when he was older. Besides, it was difficult to concentrate when he was distracted yet again by a flickering image that was suddenly becoming clearer.

In the image he was standing there staring at his reflection in a large mirror. Why was he looking in the mirror? What did it mean? Where did the images come from? Were they really appearing in front of his eyes or were they in his head? Did everybody see images like these when the Sorting Hat was placed over their heads? Surely his mum or dad would have said something about it?

So many questions, yet as the Sorting Hat started talking again he knew that eventually there would only be one answer.

"_However, you won't always follow in their footsteps. I can already see it, here in your head, that you are desperate to prove yourself, to carve out your own path. There are some things that you will do differently. Slytherin House will help you to do that."_

Albus forced himself to stay silent. He had a feeling that if he asked for too many details, then he would be sitting on the same four-legged stool all night.

"_Yet this is not just a case of Slytherin House helping you. It could work both ways. Every success, everything that you achieve, they will be a part of it. For so long they have been excluded, looked upon with disdain, but how will the Wizarding World be able to do that when you are standing alongside them, proving everybody wrong?"_

Albus still felt nervous, but this time his fear was based on something else-the fact that there in the darkness, the words that the Sorting Hat whispered were somehow making sense.

He concentrated on the image in front of him again. He realised that he was looking in the large mirror so that he could fasten his school tie…

"_It has to be your choice. If it's not what you want, then there are other Houses where you will also do well…I can rethink-"_

"No, wait, give me a minute," Albus interrupted the Sorting Hat.

The hat went silent, leaving Albus alone with his thoughts and the bizarre images which were now crystal clear. As he sat there in silence, desperately trying to make a decision, they danced in front of him, one after the other.

He was looking in the mirror again, fastening his school tie. Now he could see exactly what colour it was. There was no mistaking the shade of green because it perfectly matched the colour of his eyes.

Then he was on the Quidditch pitch, soaring through the air before diving towards a glint of gold close to the ground, the adrenaline rushing through him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his green Quidditch robes flying around him in the breeze.

In the third image, he was sitting at a long table, waiting for his turn to touch the House Cup as it was passed down the table towards him. He briefly grasped it in his hands, and there was no doubt that the ribbons tied around the handles were various shades of green and black.

In the next image, he was sitting on the edge of his bed in one of the school dormitories, surrounded by four other boys his own age, all of them wearing green ties. They were all laughing at something, laughing as though somebody had just told the most brilliant joke ever. The image focused on a boy with blond hair sitting on the bed opposite him who was also laughing at the joke.

Then all of a sudden, he was in a different location, maybe in somebody's house, but the same blond boy was still sitting opposite him. Rose was there too, along with various other members of his family, he could hear their voices in the background.

The family of the blond boy appeared on the opposite side of the room, all of them looking slightly menacing with various scars on their faces. They were dressed head to toe in black, with dark, high-collared robes that seemed to be hiding something. Even though he knew that this image wasn't real, Albus felt himself leaning forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the tattoos on their arms that he knew must be hidden under their long-sleeved tops. But as he leaned forward, he realised that their sleeves were gradually getting shorter and shorter, and when he looked closely, there were no tattoos on their arms after all.

He had no idea what that last image meant, but he could clearly see that everybody there was happy and smiling and for the moment, that was enough.

As the images slowly faded away, Albus knew. He just knew. It was as though this had been his fate all along and everybody had simply neglected to tell him. It had taken those minutes alone in the darkness to finally see it clearly.

"Yes," he responded simply, his voice full of conviction.

"_You've made the right decision," _the Sorting Hat told him happily. "_You have no idea now, at such a young age, the friendships that you will make, the wounds from the past that you will heal, how things will change. I am sure that we will have a very interesting conversation in seven years' time. But for now, let's give them the good news...Slytherin!"_

The Sorting Hat said the last word a lot louder and Albus knew that the rest of the students must have heard. He took a deep breath and waited for some sort of reaction. But for a few seconds, there was only silence.

After the unnaturally long silence, Albus suddenly heard a loud hissing noise that seemed to move all the way across the right hand wall of the Great Hall. It sounded like there was a giant snake slithering across the floor.

As the Sorting Hat was lifted off his head he was able to see where the loud hissing noise was coming from. He looked over towards the Slytherin table and realised that almost all of the students there (with the exception of those who were staring at him wide-eyed and open-mouthed) were whispering frantically in each other's ears.

As Albus slowly stood up, he was able to make out what they saying. "We got Potter?" He could hear the same question over and over again. "_We _got Potter?" "Seriously, _we _got Potter?"

Then, without warning, there was a giant roar from the right hand side of the room. It sounded like a thunderstorm had broken out on the ceiling of the Great Hall.

In one swift movement, every single student wearing a green tie was up on their feet, their applause and cheers so loud that the students on the Ravenclaw table had to cover their ears. The 'We got Potter?' question had now turned into a chant of celebration, mixed in with loud cheering and the stamping of feet.

Feeling light-headed, Albus slowly started to walk towards them all.

He briefly slowed down as he passed by Rose, who beamed at him and grabbed him for a quick hug. He looked past her shoulder, seeking out his brother. James looked back at him, grinning and shaking his head, wearing a well-if-you-must expression. James nudged his friends and they all quickly applauded politely in Albus's direction.

Feeling a lot better after seeing James, he headed right over to the Slytherin table.

Just before he got there, the Head of Slytherin House abandoned all pretence of composure and ran down the few steps that separated the staff table from the student tables. Seemingly unaware of the glare that the headmistress was giving him, he ran towards Albus and grabbed his hand to shake it. "Welcome, welcome!" he beamed at him, his eyes filled with tears.

Albus received a similar reaction from the Slytherin students. He was unable to get to his seat for several minutes as almost every boy seemed to want to shake his hand and every girl wanted to hug him. Three of the first year boys approached him and they all tried to shake his hand at the same time. After a while they gave up and simply grabbed him for a group hug.

When they finally let go of him, Albus was able to find Scorpius and he slid gratefully into the empty seat next to him. Even though Scorpius was a lot more restrained than the other first year boys and simply patted him on the shoulder, Albus was glad that he too was grinning from ear to ear. "Congratulations!" he managed to shout to Albus over the cheering.

After ten minutes, the headmistress had had enough: "Slytherin House, we understand that you are very happy with your newest student…" (There were even more cheers.) "However, I would like to remind you that we must finish the Sorting Ceremony at some point this evening!"

The applause died down and the next student was called upon to be sorted.

Albus sat back in his seat, taking deep breaths and feeling like he had just run for miles.

"Are you happy?" Scorpius whispered to him. Albus could only nod back at him. "They'll all be really proud of you, your dad especially," Scorpius told him. He said it in a calm and certain voice that reminded Albus not only of Rose but also of his sister Lily. Both of them had a way of telling him things in such a reassuring tone of voice that he couldn't help believing them, no matter how nervous he was.

"Thanks," Albus whispered back, now completely sure that he was in the right place.

"Although, I really hope that you don't get that kind of reaction every time we come here to eat breakfast," Scorpius muttered with a grin on his face. "It might make us late for class…"

Albus shook his head at him and laughed. As he waited for the last few students to be sorted, he realised that there were some things that mattered and there were some things that didn't. As long as James still spoke to him and his parents were happy and Rose got along with Scorpius as well as he did, then as far as he was concerned, nothing else mattered.

As he thought about his parents, Albus was reminded that he would have to plan out what to write in his first letter home. He briefly wondered whether he should ask his dad if he had known Scorpius's dad at school, but he eventually decided that the announcement that he had been sorted into Slytherin House would definitely make for interesting enough reading, for now.


	3. The Midday Duel

Scorpius leaned casually against one of the trees in the school courtyard, waiting for Albus to arrive.

After a quick glance around to check that there were no teachers close by, he tightened his grip around the wand that he was holding in his left hand and changed his facial expression into what he hoped was an angry and intimidating look.

They had done this a few times already, and every time he was always unsure about whether he was standing correctly or if he was even holding the wand in a way that it would be able to block a real hex. This was mainly due to the fact that he had only started at Hogwarts six weeks ago and was therefore completely unfamiliar with what a real, adult wizard duel might look like, and he was sure that the older students wouldn't be interested in explaining the rules to a first year.

The most reliable information he could find was in the chapters of the History of Magic textbooks about the famous wizard duels of the fourteenth century that they had been reading about in class, and of course the rolls of parchment filled with notes that he and Rose Weasley had shared with each other.

The two of them often had to share their notes with most of the other first years as well, because they were usually the only ones who were able to write down everything that Professor Binns said during his lectures.

Not that Scorpius cared too much about following every single rule when it came to things like this. Even if he made mistakes, or pronounced most of the spells incorrectly, it would still be fun. That was the whole idea.

He worked on his facial expression again, trying to decide whether it would be best to frown, narrow his eyes or try some sort of sarcastic smirk.

The whole angry look was somewhat ruined when his friend Colin walked past and he had to straighten up and smile and wave. He didn't want Colin to work out what he was doing and stop and stare.

He had just leaned back against the tree when Dominique walked past, closely followed by Scorpius's friend Ursula. He smiled and nodded politely at both girls before he moved back into his previous position.

He glanced at his watch. Where _was _he? Scorpius had seen him only ten minutes ago, deep in conversation with Professor Slughorn just outside the Great Hall. He had rushed past him, whispering, "Hurry up!" before he headed outside. Surely the conversation couldn't go on for too long? And it would take him less than five minutes to leave the Entrance Hall and walk into the courtyard.

It had been Scorpius who had offered the challenge this time, trying his best to storm convincingly into the Great Hall and ignore several suspicious glances that were coming from the direction of the staff table.

They had both agreed on the time and place at breakfast, wanting to make the whole thing look as grown up and professional as possible.

The school grounds had seemed like the best idea at the time, as the professors hardly ever spent their whole lunch hour outside. Scorpius was sure that they weren't actually breaking any rules, but he had a feeling that the teachers probably wouldn't actively encourage them to spend their lunch hour like this.

It also meant that Professor Slughorn was unlikely to catch them. He apparently preferred to spend his free time sitting comfortably in an armchair by the fireplace in his office, hardly ever venturing outside into the courtyard.

Yet Scorpius had his suspicions that their Head of House wasn't nearly as frail as he made himself out to be. He did have the occasional moment (usually when he was really happy or really angry) when he dropped his walking stick and walked briskly up and down the corridors like someone half his age. Like the night when Albus was sorted into Slytherin. Or the day he found out that Scorpius had won fifty points for Slytherin when he got full marks on his first Transfiguration test, putting them ever so slightly in the lead for the House Cup.

As a gust of wind swept across the courtyard, Scorpius had to use his right hand to push a lock of hair away from his face. He had forgotten how annoying it could be, standing still waiting out in the cold. Especially now that it was October and the ground was constantly damp and covered in mud.

Out of the corner of his eye, Scorpius noticed the flash of a black robe and a blue tie. A few seconds later, Rose was heading towards him. She spotted him and started to make a hand gesture as though she was about to call him over, but then she stopped and her eyes moved from his face to his left hand.

"_Again?" _she mouthed at him, looking like she was trying not to roll her eyes. Scorpius simply shrugged. Rose sighed and went to sit on one of the steps a few feet away. She took a book out of her bag and opened it, but Scorpius noticed that her eyes flickered upwards every few seconds, watching the scene with interest, the way she always did.

Albus wasn't far behind her. He stalked towards Scorpius with an irritated expression on his face, grabbing one of the wands that they had agreed to use for this from his robes pocket. Scorpius resisted the urge to grin, happy that they could start before the bell went for afternoon classes. Instead, he stood up straight and walked slowly and deliberately towards him, wand at the ready for an attack.

"I thought you were going to back out," he sneered at Albus.

"You wish," Albus sneered back at him.

They both came to a stop and stood facing each other. Scorpius looked from side to side, secretly glad that nobody was really paying them any attention. He always felt self-conscious when other students stared at him.

He was just about to look at Albus again when he noticed that James had come to a sudden standstill over on the other side of the courtyard. As James looked slowly from Albus to Scorpius, a smirk crept to his face and he nudged his cousin Fred, who was standing next to him. The two of them discreetly moved closer to watch.

Scorpius looked nervously back at Albus, all too aware of the fact that Rose, James and Fred were now watching closely.

The two of them bowed slowly to each other and Scorpius raised his wand higher, trying to think of a decent spell that he could start the duel with.

"Ready?" he asked Albus.

"Ready," Albus replied.

"Wait! Stop! Stop!" Rose was suddenly on her feet and running towards them. She stood between them so that they were forced to stop and look at her. "If you insist on doing this, then you really should do it properly," she told them sternly. "Scorpius, that wand is too high, if Albus really did throw a dangerous hex or jinx at you, you wouldn't be able to protect yourself. You need to lower it slightly."

Scorpius did as he was told as Rose turned to Albus.

"Al, you're standing too close. I read all about the rules and you need to take at least two steps back so you're both more or less at the correct duelling distance."

Scorpius smirked at Albus as he moved backwards.

Rose looked from one to the other, and with a satisfied nod, she returned to her seat on the step.

"Hurry up, we haven't got much time," Albus told Scorpius, the glare back on his face. Scorpius could tell that Albus had definitely been practising his annoyed expression since the last duel.

Scorpius moved his wand back slightly; the words of what he thought could be a hex just about to leave his mouth-

"Albus! Scorpius!"

The two boys looked at each other in horror at the sound of what was unmistakably an adult voice shouting their names.

Before Scorpius could even chance a look around to see who the voice and the loud approaching footsteps belonged to, Professor Longbottom had leapt between the two of them. He stood at an equal distance from one to the other, his expression almost fearful and his hands stretched out as though he was trying to prevent them from running at each other to start fighting.

Scorpius looked questioningly at Albus, who shrugged back at him, apparently just as confused as he was.

"What do you think you're doing?" Professor Longbottom shouted. "Duelling in the middle of the courtyard! You're in _first year_! You don't have enough experience; you could seriously hurt each other! And you must know that it's against the rules! Albus, I expected better of you!"

"Didn't you expect better of me too, Professor?" Scorpius asked sulkily. He knew that Professor Longbottom had known Albus and his family for years, but still, he couldn't help feeling somewhat disappointed at the idea that one of the teachers would expect Albus to stay out of trouble but not him.

"Yes, yes of course, you too, Scorpius," their professor replied hurriedly, sounding slightly flustered. "But right now, that's beside the point. No matter what problems you may have with each other, this is _not _the answer. You're not going to resolve any grudges with a duel, all that will happen is you'll both end up spending the weekend in the hospital wing!"

Scorpius looked at the shocked expression on Albus's face and he realised that he must have reached the same conclusion. Their professor thought that they were angry with each other, and that they were about to have a real duel in the middle of the school grounds, after only six weeks of Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. The idea would have been hilarious, if Scorpius hadn't been so worried about getting detention.

"Twenty points from-"

"No," Albus whined, his state of shock apparently wearing off at the threat of losing points from their House. "Nev-Professor Longbottom, you can't, it wasn't real, it's only a game."

"It's a game?" their professor asked, looking doubtful.

"Yes," Scorpius interrupted. "We were trying to recreate one of the duels that we studying in History of Magic, we do it all the time…"

Scorpius noticed that Rose was rolling her eyes. He winced as he realised that it probably hadn't been a good idea to tell Professor Longbottom that this wasn't the first time that they had pretended to duel against each other.

"We're not even using real wands," Scorpius quickly continued before Professor Longbottom could say anything about his previous comment. "Look, they're just sticks that we found on the floor, I wouldn't point a real wand at somebody… not after what happened in Charms class a few weeks ago, anyway." Scorpius said the last part of that sentence quietly, shuddering at the memory of a certain Hover Charm that had gone horribly wrong.

He raised his arm and held the thin stick right up his professor's eyes to illustrate his point. He was sure that he could see a flicker of amusement on his professor's face, but then the doubtful look came back.

"So...you're not really duelling?" he asked, still not sounding convinced.

Albus shook his head in response as Scorpius moved around his professor to stand next to him, hoping to prove the point that they didn't dislike each other. However, he tripped slightly on the damp leaves and ended up accidently standing on Albus's toe.

Albus muttered, "Ouch!" and shoved him slightly, so Scorpius responded by shoving him lightly back. They realised a few seconds too late that their professor was watching them with his eyes widened in horror, as though they were hitting rather than shoving each other.

Next minute, Rose pushed the two of them apart and stood in the middle. She glared at both of them before she turned to Professor Longbottom. "Honestly Professor, it _was only a game. I wouldn't sit there doing nothing if somebody really was about to hex my cousin."_

Rose's statement seemed to convince him and his face finally relaxed.

"Fine," he sighed, "but don't let me catch you duelling out here again, even if it is only pretend. I don't want you to set a bad example for other students."

"So you're not going to take points off Slytherin?" Albus asked.

"Not this time," he responded. "But if I catch you again, I will."

"Oh go on Professor, take some points off them," James smirked from over in the corner. "They fight all the time, honestly."

"Go away, James!" Albus snapped at him, just as Scorpius slipped again on the damp ground and hurriedly grabbed onto Albus's sleeve for support.

"_You _go away!" James snapped back. "Me and Fred were out here first!"

"Albus! James!" Professor Longbottom shouted warningly. He was looking frantically from left to right, as though he was trying to decide whether he needed to separate Albus and Scorpius or Albus and James.

In the end, Scorpius managed to stand up correctly again and James threw one more glare at Albus before he walked away with Fred falling into step behind him.

Professor Longbottom turned to walk away from Albus, Rose and Scorpius, muttering a final, "Behave, all of you!" before he started to head back inside.

As he walked away, Scorpius suddenly realised with a wave of disappointment that he might not be able to play this particular game with Albus anymore, especially if their professor was going to take points off them if he caught them again. It would be a shame if it had to stop. Being the only child, Scorpius had rarely had anyone at home to play games with like Exploding Snap or fake wizard duels, and he was only just starting to appreciate what it was like to be constantly surrounded by people his own age who helped him to invent fun things to do to pass the time.

"We can still have duels indoors, can't we?" he asked Albus in barely more than a whisper, deciding that technically, Professor Longbottom had only told them that he didn't want to catch them duelling _outside _again.

"I can still hear you from over here!" their professor shouted at them from the doorway.

"I suppose so…" Albus muttered back.

Next minute, Professor Longbottom was striding back towards them, shouting something about not yet being experienced enough to control their magic, even in a fake duel.

"Or maybe we should just think of a different game?" Albus whispered hurriedly, his voice almost drowned out by their professor telling them that they had to find other ways to communicate that didn't involve pretending to hex each other.

Scorpius nodded slowly, annoyed that the adults just didn't seem to understand how much fun these games could be, but also deciding that it probably wasn't worth all this trouble just for one simple midday duel.


	4. High Flyers

"Up!"

Rose Weasley had barely pronounced the last letter of the word when the broomstick that had been lying on the floor leapt up into her outstretched hand. As her hand clenched tightly around the broom, she felt her lips curl into a triumphant grin. She may have inherited her mother's brains, but she had definitely inherited her father's love of flying.

She was glad that it was Oliver Wood who was teaching their first flying lesson, especially when he beamed proudly at her as he walked down the middle of the two lines of Ravenclaw and Slytherin students.

Oliver occasionally made appearances at Hogwarts to help teach flying lessons or to act as referee in some of the school Quidditch matches, and whenever he was there, he usually found the time to speak to Albus and Rose in the Great Hall.

As soon as Oliver turned his attention to some of the other students who were still struggling to get their broomsticks to move off the ground, Rose looked over at the line of Slytherin students, wondering whether she would get the opportunity to jokingly throw a smug smirk over at Albus and Scorpius.

However, as she caught sight of a flash of black and blond hair towards the end of the line, her hopes were quickly dashed. The two of them were also standing with their brooms in hand, looking slightly surprised but also eager to get them into the air and start flying.

Rose felt herself sighing heavily, realising that she had done it again. She knew that she could be competitive, even with her friends. Sometimes, it was so automatic that she forgot she was even doing it.

She was exactly the same in class as well; all it took was the promise of winning points for her House and her quill would suddenly be moving across the parchment at lightning speed, desperately trying to get the best results.

Before she started at Hogwarts, she had spent most of the summer worrying not only about disappointing her family if she wasn't sorted into Gryffindor, but also about whether the other students would like her or not. Her brother and her cousins knew exactly what she like as they had all grown up together, and they were all close friends, despite their different personalities. But she had worried that the other students wouldn't be so accepting.

However, from the moment the Sorting Hat had been placed on her head and it had shouted, "Ravenclaw!" without even pausing to think, Rose had found herself surrounded by students who not only shared her appreciation of books and exams, but also actively encouraged her competitiveness, especially if it helped them to win house points.

Her dad hadn't even minded too much when she wrote her first letter home to tell him about the results of the Sorting Ceremony. He had written back the next day with an opening line of: _Better Ravenclaw than Slytherin_.

But then he had sent another letter later that day telling her to ignore his previous comment and asking if she would mind not telling her Uncle Harry about what he had said. She had laughed about it as she realised that either he had only just found out that day that Al had been sorted into Slytherin, or her mum had found out about what he had written and forced him to write a different letter.

Rose suddenly noticed that Scorpius was watching her uncertainly, and realising that she had probably been standing there looking disappointed at how he and Albus were just as good as she was at this particular class, she quickly tried to smile and mouth a few words of congratulations.

Back in September, it had been the other way around-she was the one who had constantly looked at Scorpius with doubt and uncertainty.

She would never say anything to Albus, but she knew more about his family than he did. Her own father was a lot less careful about what he said than Albus's parents were, and he often slipped up and revealed his opinions about certain people, even if Rose and Hugo were in the same room.

It was easy for Rose to work out what he thought about them, because her dad hardly ever got angry. Yet a few years ago, whenever a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ or _The_ _Quibbler_ would arrive by owl post in the morning and he would find one of the articles about some sort of charity work that the family had been involved in, he would always tear the page angrily out of the newspaper, his ears glowing bright red as he muttered something about it being too late, with her mum glaring at him in exasperation the whole time.

The name 'Scorpius' had also been mentioned several times in her house, even before her first day on Platform 9 ¾ when her dad had given her strict instructions that she had to beat him in every test.

She had this whole image built up of what he was going to be like, but then she had woken up in the train compartment to find him sitting there opposite Albus, looking nervous and almost as though he couldn't quite believe that he was sitting with them.

He had started to talk to her about spells and school books, asking questions like he really cared about what she thought, and she had decided that maybe her previous image had been wrong.

If she hadn't already known for sure, she would even have started to doubt her dad's belief that he was from a pure-blood family, as he had looked around the train compartment with such fascination, like he was new to the Wizarding World.

However, she had barely had time to think about their encounter on the Hogwarts Express when they had all walked into the Great Hall and both he and Albus had been sorted into Slytherin.

Even though there had been a slight feeling of disappointment when she realised that her cousin wouldn't be in the same House as her, she hadn't really minded too much about the fact that he was the newest member of Slytherin House. Despite Albus's constant protests, she had always had this strange feeling that he might end up there, especially at Christmas when their grandmother always knitted a green jumper for him to match the colour of his eyes.

She had been more worried about the idea that after eleven years, Albus might suddenly prefer to spend time with Scorpius instead of her.

Rose loved all of her cousins equally, but Albus was the one who she usually spent the most time with, as they had so much in common. Sometimes, when people would ask her about brothers and sisters, she would forget and start to tell them that she had two brothers instead of one, and then she would have to correct herself.

She had always been the one to leap to his defence when he argued with their older cousins, and she was always the one who gave him a hug and told him that things were going to be okay whenever he was having one of his usual moments of panic.

She had been well aware of the fact that the two of them would meet other friends at school and spend time with different students, but she didn't want their friendship to come to an abrupt end or for somebody else to take her place.

Her worries had eased slightly when Albus asked for her help with writing his first letter home, because he had been worried about how his parents were going to react when he told them about being sorted into Slytherin, and she had felt happy knowing that he still needed her help and support.

She had also felt extremely happy for the first three days of class. She had quickly discovered that her hand was always the first to shoot up into the air whenever one of the professors asked a question, and by Wednesday she had already won twenty points for Ravenclaw.

It had all been going so well, right up until she had her first Herbology class with the Slytherins on the Thursday morning.

Five minutes into the class, Neville had asked the first question. Rose had looked around at the confused stares on the faces of the students sitting next to her, and her hand had just left her side so that she could push it up into the air, when she had looked at the row in front and realised that a hand had shot up seconds before hers.

Of course, the hand just had to belong to Scorpius Malfoy.

Then their professor had asked another question, and the same thing happened again, and again.

In the end, she had resorted to trying to anticipate the questions in advance and putting her hand up before Neville had even started to ask anything, just so she could get an answer in before Scorpius did.

She had felt silly later that evening when she thought about it, but whenever she was actually in a situation like that, something took over and she just couldn't stop herself.

As the days went on, she had felt even more guilty about her competiveness when she realised that she didn't even have a particular reason to dislike him. He never smirked smugly at her when he answered a question before she did, and he never looked exasperated when she invited herself to sit at the Slytherin table at breakfast whenever he was teaching Albus how to play Wizard's Chess, not even when she constantly asked, "Why are you _helping _him to win?" in a tone of disbelief, unable to stop herself yet again.

But still, she hadn't liked the way Albus shifted uncomfortably when she asked that question, or the way that Scorpius had started to say, "Don't worry Albus, everything will be fine," whenever Albus was stressed about something, using what was originally Rose and Lily's favourite line, and she had worried yet again that he might prefer Scorpius's company to hers.

"Mount your brooms!"

Rose was on the broom and up in the air in a matter of seconds. She had been flying since she was about three years old, despite her grandmother's constant protests, so the whole thing was really easy.

She noticed that Albus was looking at her. As she looked back at him he mouthed the question, "_Race?" _and she found herself nodding to accept the challenge before she had even considered the possible consequences if Oliver realised what they doing.

Stronger than her need to compete was her wish to not get into trouble with the teachers or to do or say anything that might anger or upset someone. She decided that she would have to be discreet about it, and maybe not fly as fast or as high as she would in her own garden.

Scorpius was watching the two of them with amusement as they tried to get past each other. Rose paused to watch him for a few seconds, and she was impressed by how fast he could fly. He sped past Albus easily, but Rose noticed that he didn't have the same level of control that Albus did, and his grip was definitely wrong. She shuddered as she thought about how dangerous it could be if he got in somebody's way when he was flying that fast.

Yet despite this uneasy thought, still she hovered there in mid-air, wondering if she would be able to fly faster than he could if she made an effort. She sped up slightly, heading towards him. She was glad that they were friends now, as it meant that he would be less likely to get annoyed about her obvious attempt to fly past him.

It had been during a Charms class in the third week of September that everything had finally worked itself out. Rose had already taken her seat when the two of them had walked into the classroom five minutes late, bickering about something that had happened during their History of Magic class. Albus had ended up going to sit next to his friend Stephen, whilst Scorpius had taken the seat next to Rose.

Even though Albus and Scorpius were friends, they didn't spend every moment of the day together, and they seemed to like working with other students whenever they had classes with the Ravenclaws.

They were learning about levitation that day, and they were supposed to use the Hover Charm to raise a feather up into the air. However, despite their best efforts, the feather lying on the desk in front of Rose and Scorpius had refused to move. They had both looked over at Albus, who had managed to raise his own feather all the way up to the ceiling in a matter of seconds, sitting back in his seat like it was really easy.

Rose knew that she was good at memorising information and she had a particular talent for subjects like Potions and History of Magic, which were based on theory, facts and precision, but Albus just seemed to have some sort of natural instinct when it came to casting spells, especially in Charms class or Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Rose had looked from Albus to Scorpius and she had instantly recognised the look of competitiveness on his face. In one swift movement, the two of them had pointed their wands at their own feather, frantically shouting, "Wigardium Leviosa!" at exactly the same time in their haste to get that feather up in the air and higher than Albus's.

This had resulted in the feather jumping up into the air and exploding spectacularly above their heads, showering them with ash and sparks, whilst Albus cracked up in silent laughter on the other side of the classroom.

It had been really embarrassing at the time, and of course their professor had been furious, and it had taken at least three days to get all of the scorched pieces of the feather out of their hair, but in the end it had been worth it.

Maybe it was because she had started to realise that for whatever reason, Scorpius was also trying to prove himself, just like her and Albus, or maybe it was simply because you couldn't go through the shared experience of being covered by the shattered remains of an exploding feather without developing some sort of bond; but after that class, Scorpius always sat next to Rose in Charms and Herbology, and her usual phrase of, "Me and Al are going to visit Hagrid this afternoon," had suddenly turned into, "Me, Al and Scorpius are going to visit Hagrid this afternoon."

Rose urged the broom further forward, even though she knew that it probably wasn't the best idea she had ever had.

She was distracted when Oliver started to shout something to Scorpius about flying too fast and she started to think that maybe she should give up and head back down to the ground.

She dropped down slightly, but then stopped a few feet away from the floor, just in case she had to go back up and get Scorpius out of trouble.

This was another new thing that she had started to do, leaping forward to defend both Albus and Scorpius rather than just Albus, especially when they had almost got into serious trouble over one of their ridiculous fake duels that they insisted on staging almost every week.

"Rose!"

This time Oliver was shouting warningly at her rather than at Scorpius.

Rose looked around startled for a few seconds, trying to work out what she had done.

After a minute, she came to the conclusion that from the angle Oliver was flying at, it might have looked like she was about to fly up towards Scorpius to try to block him or crash into him.

Oliver pointed from Rose to the ground. Most of the girls in her year were jealous about the fact that so many of the Hogwarts teachers were friends with her parents, but in reality it often worked against her as they were particularly strict with her and with her cousins, trying to prove the point that there was no favouritism going on.

She shouted a quick apology and with a heavy sigh, she moved even further down until she felt the grass under her feet.

The second she dismounted her broom, the competitive thoughts were back in her head, suggesting that she ask Teddy to teach her how to fly faster when she went back home for Christmas.

She tried to distract herself by thinking about the test that she was supposed to have in two days' time in her Defence Against the Dark Arts class, but that didn't work as she then started to wonder whether Albus was going to get better marks than her, which really wouldn't be fair when Scorpius had already beaten her in the Transfiguration test.

"This is all Dad's fault," Rose muttered sulkily, desperately trying to find somebody else to blame.


	5. The Howler

After the night of the Sorting Ceremony, Albus's memories of his first few days at Hogwarts were all jumbled together in a blur of trying to get to his classes on time and trying to avoid trick doors, vanishing steps or worse, Peeves the Poltergeist. Then, as soon as he actually entered one of the classrooms, everything turned into another blur of trying to understand what the teachers were saying as he attempted to take notes and cast basic spells at the same time.

He had been extremely grateful at the end of the week when he had been able to sit back in a huge comfortable chair at Hagrid's, letting Rose do most of the talking as he sat there with his eyes half closed and responded with the occasional 'yes', 'no' or 'I'm not sure'.

However, by the second week, everything seemed to have calmed down slightly and Albus started to take more notice of things that were happening around Hogwarts. He quickly found his way around school, knowing almost by instinct where all of the classrooms or teachers' offices were.

He was sure that he had also stumbled upon several secret passageways that the other students didn't know about on his way to a few of the classes, but he had been so distracted thinking about all the homework he had to do that he hadn't really been interested in trying to find out where they actually led to. Besides, he knew that his cousin Fred would be devastated if a first year discovered a secret passageway before he did.

By the end of September, Albus had also started to notice a few basic patterns of events that happened at Hogwarts: The first was that it was practically guaranteed that one of the bathrooms would flood at least once a week. The second was that if there was some sort of explosion outside a classroom, James and Fred were usually involved. If the explosion was inside the classroom, Scorpius was usually involved. The third was that almost every evening, the ghost of a cat with huge eyes prowled the school corridors, looking even more menacing than Peeves.

As September turned into October, Albus already felt like he had been at Hogwarts for years rather than only a month. His classes got a lot more interesting and he found that there were certain subjects he really liked. He wasn't like Rose or Scorpius, who nearly always got full marks in tests and played their game of who-can-answer-the-most-questions-correctly every time they had class together, but still, he knew that there were certain spells that he could cast faster than other students and certain potions that he could make without much help from Professor Slughorn.

Outside the classrooms, he found the time to play games like Exploding Snap, Wizard's Chess and even the occasional Quidditch match with Rose and Scorpius.

Scorpius had started to accompany Albus and Rose on their weekly visits to Hagrid's, something which Hagrid seemed to find hilarious, even though he wouldn't tell them why. Instead, he sat there chuckling to himself behind his hands as they poured cups of tea for each other or cut pieces of cake into three equal slices.

Albus also got to know the other first years, and he was glad that he enjoyed spending time not only with the Slytherin students but also with students from the other three Houses, as it meant that he had the choice of four different common rooms to spend time in whenever he had a spare moment.

As Albus spent more and more time with students from the other Houses, and as he observed their behaviour and that of the professors, he gradually noticed another pattern, even though he couldn't really explain the reasons behind it: the teachers seemed to be extremely paranoid about the suggestion of any sort of rivalry, either between or within the four Houses.

At first, Albus hadn't thought about it very much. He had simply thought that it was slightly strange how the teachers always looked up suspiciously from their plates of food whenever a Gryffindor student approached the Slytherin table in the Great Hall.

He hadn't even thought about it too much when an argument had broken out between a Slytherin and a Hufflepuff student and at least seven of the professors had leapt up from their seats to separate the two of them.

He started to pay a little more attention to it at the end of September when James had shouted out something mildly insulting about Slytherin House one afternoon and was instantly threatened with a detention. But even then he had quickly forgotten about it, mainly due to the fact that James seemed to be threatened with detention at least once a week.

However, it hadn't taken long for Albus to find out first-hand just how paranoid the professors could be.

His first hint of it had been the look on Neville's face as he stood between Albus and Scorpius in the school courtyard, mistakenly believing that they were about to throw hexes at each other. Then there had been the suspiciously similar look on Oliver Wood's face as his eyes darted from Rose to Scorpius during their first flying lesson.

Albus had tried to ignore it as best he could, but the professors didn't exactly make it easy. The day after the flying lesson, Albus had been sitting next to Rose and Scorpius in Herbology. Neville had asked a question and as usual, Scorpius had put his hand up to respond. Surprisingly, his answer hadn't been correct. The second he had put his hand down, Rose had grinned and jokingly muttered, "_I _knew the answer," as she waited for the two of them to grin and roll their eyes at her. Neville hadn't quite understood that she was only joking and he had paused and looked pointedly over at Rose, letting her know that he wasn't happy with her.

Scorpius had looked slightly startled later in the day when Rose had slowly walked up to him as he and Albus were waiting outside the Transfiguration classroom, her head bowed as she held her hand out for him to shake and muttered, "I'm really sorry" before she turned around and headed in the opposite direction towards her History of Magic class.

A few days later, Rose had arrived late to Charms class and taken the only available seat on the front row, looking pale and tired after suffering from a bad cold for a whole weekend. Scorpius had scribbled a note on a piece of parchment to ask if she was feeling any better. Still unable to successfully cast a Hover Charm, he had simply picked up the piece of parchment and thrown it in her direction. Albus was certain that the parchment had landed several inches away from her, but still Scorpius had got into trouble for throwing things at another student.

Then, only hours after that class, Albus had tried to get Scorpius's attention in a packed corridor on the fourth floor. Unable to shout over the noise of hundreds of conversations going on at the same time, he had grabbed Scorpius by the sleeve of his robes as he walked past him. That had apparently been a very bad idea as one of the prefects had walked past at that moment and shouted something about breaking school rules by fighting in the corridors.

Of course, James and Fred found the whole thing hilarious and had taken to jumping in between Albus, Rose and Scorpius whenever they walked past them on the way to class, jokingly putting their hands out as though they were trying to separate the three of them and warning other students to back away in case they started another duel. Even though it had been really annoying at the time, in a way James and Fred's reaction had helped the situation, as most of the teachers had started to laugh along, apparently realising just how ridiculous the whole thing was.

Albus had only just started to relax and appreciate the fact that the teachers had finally left them alone, when something happened towards the end of October that would highlight to the three of them that the teachers definitely weren't the only ones who were extremely worried about rivalries at Hogwarts.

It had started off as a normal Friday morning. Albus and Scorpius had left the Slytherin common room and headed to the Great Hall to eat breakfast. They had decided to sit at the Ravenclaw table, with Albus taking the empty seat next to Rose whilst Scorpius took a seat on the opposite side of the table next to Rose's friend Kate.

Scorpius had spent several minutes showing the two girls all of his recently developed photographs that he had taken during his first few weeks at Hogwarts. It had only taken a vague comment from Rose about how the people in the pictures that her Muggle grandparents took stayed still rather than moving around and Scorpius had suddenly widened his eyes in fascination and started to ask all of his usual questions about Muggles that he always saved up for Rose.

As Scorpius and Kate both listened intently to Rose, Albus distracted himself by rereading a letter from his sister Lily that he hadn't had the time to read properly earlier in the week when they had all been studying for a History of Magic test.

Lily hadn't been able to write in as much detail as his parents did, because she was still only nine years old, but still she had written phrases like, _I miss you! _all over the piece of parchment, complete with pictures that she had drawn. Albus got to the end of the letter and had to supress a grin when he read the line, _Don't worry, everything will be fine! _convinced that his mum and dad had encouraged her to put it in the letter as a joke.

After a few minutes, Albus noticed that Scorpius was for some reason staring at the letter from Lily.

"It's from my sister," Albus told him as Scorpius nodded.

"Can I see it?" he asked Albus hesitantly after a brief pause. Albus looked at him with confusion. He had no idea why a letter from one of his siblings would be so interesting, but then, he also had no idea why a detailed conversation about how a Muggle car or camera worked would be so fascinating.

"Actually, don't worry about it," Scorpius started to say, apparently noticing Albus's look of confusion. "I know it's private…"

"Here," Albus interrupted, handing the letter over to him. Scorpius read over the letter for a few minutes before he handed it back to Albus and picked up a piece of toast. Albus looked at Rose for some sort of explanation, but she simply shrugged at him before she too carried on eating.

Their comfortable silence was eventually disturbed by James's arrival in the Great Hall. He ran through the doorway and jumped up in celebration before shouting, "I'm the new Gryffindor Seeker!"

This statement was met with loud applause from most of the students at the Gryffindor table. A few of James's fellow second years even stood up as they clapped.

Albus and Rose had just finished rolling their eyes at each other when James found them at the Ravenclaw table and stared at them pointedly. Realising what he was silently trying to tell them, the two of them slowly got to their own feet and applauded him, trying to ignore a few incredulous looks that were coming from the students at the Slytherin table.

Albus knew that it was only fair though. After all, James had stood up and applauded the two of them on the night of the Sorting Ceremony, even though neither of them had been sorted into Gryffindor, and now he was expecting their congratulations in return.

"Fred's got a place on the team too!" they heard James tell his friends as they sat back down. "He'll be here in a minute!"

"Will we have to stand up for Fred as well?" Rose whispered to Albus.

"Probably," Albus replied with a faint smile.

Convinced that all the shouting and excitement was over for the day, Albus opened his copy of the _Daily Prophet_ and read some of the articles whilst he waited for Rose and Scorpius to finish eating.

"Is that a Howler?" he heard Scorpius ask, his voice suddenly sounding terrified.

"It's probably for James," Albus replied automatically, not looking up from the article that he was reading about the results of the Quidditch matches for that month. "Or Fred, or Molly, or Erica…"

"No, you don't understand," Scorpius interrupted him. "It's not for one of the Gryffindors, that owl belongs to _my _parents!"

Albus quickly looked up at the large black owl that was circling the tables, a red envelope tied to its leg.

"Maybe it won't see me," Scorpius whispered, sinking down in his seat as though he could make himself invisible.

"But why would you get a How-" Rose started to ask, just as the owl stopped looking down at the Slytherin table and flew over to the Ravenclaw table, dropping the letter right in front of Scorpius.

Scorpius stared at it in shock, apparently afraid to touch it.

"But…I didn't _do _anything!" he shouted at the envelope, sounding more confused than angry.

Albus however had a horrible feeling that he knew exactly what it was going to be about.

"You have to open it," Rose told him slowly, already putting her hands over her ears as Kate chose that moment to shove the last piece of toast into her mouth and run out of the Great Hall. "Better to just get it over with."

Scorpius sighed and slowly tore the envelope open.

Albus remembered at the last minute to cover his own ears, not that it made much difference.

SCORPIUS MALFOY!

A voice that could only belong to Scorpius's mother shouted out of the letter as Scorpius's eyes widened in horror.

HOW DARE YOU CHALLENGE ANOTHER STUDENT TO A DUEL!

Albus sighed heavily as his theory was proved correct.

"No, I didn't…" Scorpius desperately tried to interrupt before his voice was drowned out.

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW DANGEROUS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN? YOU COULD HAVE BOTH BEEN SERIOUSLY INJURED!

All of the students at the Ravenclaw table were now staring at Scorpius.

DID WE NOT MAKE IT CLEAR BEFORE YOU STARTED AT HOGWARTS THAT YOU WERE _NOT _ALLOWED TO GET INVOLVED IN ANY DUELS?

The voice echoed all around the Great Hall, reverberating against the walls as it travelled between the four House tables to the High Table and back again. It sounded like Scorpius's mother was making sure that every single person in there was fully aware of her anger and disapproval. As the voice echoed around the room, Albus noticed something else about it-not only did his mother sound furious but she also sounded frantic, as though she was afraid of something or she was about to burst into tears at any moment. As she continued shouting at Scorpius, she tripped on some of her words.

AND IF THAT'S NOT BAD ENOUGH, NOW WE'RE HEARING STORIES THAT YOU CAUSED AN OBJECT TO EXPLODE IN A CLASSROOM…ABOVE A _FEMALE STUDENT'S HEAD_!

Scorpius looked at Rose, his eyes still wide, but he didn't have time to say anything.

YOU KNOW THAT YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO BEHAVE LIKE THAT AT HOME, SO I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU THINK THE RULES ARE ANY DIFFERENT WHEN YOU'RE AT SCHOOL!

In the brief pause that followed, Albus quickly looked over at Neville and Professor Flitwick on the staff table. He could tell by the shocked and almost sympathetic expressions on their faces that they definitely hadn't been the ones to tell Scorpius's mother about what had happened.

YOUR FATHER IS ABSOLUTELY FURIOUS WITH YOU!

"I doubt it…" Scorpius started to mutter before he was interrupted yet again. This time the voice was even louder.

DID YOU EVEN STOP TO CONSIDER HOW HUMILIATING IT WOULD BE FOR YOUR FATHER AND I AT WORK WHEN WE OVERHEARD OTHER PARENTS TALKING ABOUT YOUR BEHAVIOUR AT SCHOOL?

Scorpius definitely looked embarrassed by that statement. His face was slightly flushed as he sank down even further in his chair.

As his mother started to speak again, her voice suddenly softened and decreased in volume, meaning that Albus could finally remove his hands from his ears:

I know that you're not going to get along with everybody at Hogwarts, and sometimes students will say things that might upset you, but it's no excuse for putting somebody in danger, Scorpius. I want you to do the right thing and apologise to Albus Potter and Rose Weasley…

Albus shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He had been hoping that Scorpius's mother had no idea about the names of the students who Scorpius had supposedly been trying to injure. The mention of his and Rose's names seemed to make the whole thing even worse.

The voice increased in volume again:

AND IF WE HEAR ONE MORE STORY ABOUT AN EXPLOSION OR A DUEL, WE'LL…OKAY _I'LL _BE UP AT THAT SCHOOL...

Albus had the sudden urge to laugh, despite the seriousness of the situation, as he imagined Scorpius's father sitting in the background, muttering, "_I'm _not getting involved in this!" the way his Uncle Ron always did whenever his Aunt Hermione was trying to be strict with Rose and Hugo.

With a final cry of, BEHAVE, SCORPIUS! the shouting stopped and everything went silent. Most of the students looked like they were trying not to laugh, with the exception of the students at the Slytherin table who were all looking at Scorpius sympathetically. There seemed to be an unspoken rule amongst the Slytherins that they could never _ever _laugh at the misfortune of one of their own students, which worked out well for Albus whenever he got himself into an embarrassing situation.

"Thanks for stealing my thunder, Scorp!" Fred shouted out jokingly from the doorway to the Great Hall, before he winked at the three of them, looking almost impressed.

Fred's comment seemed to ease the tension as a few people laughed and there was even a round of scattered applause before everybody started talking again.

"Sorry, Albus, sorry, Rose," Scorpius finally muttered, his gaze still fixed on the red envelope as though he was scared that his mother would start shouting at him again if he didn't do as he was told and apologise.

"Don't worry about it," Albus told him calmly.

However, he realised that he must have looked ever so slightly amused by the situation as Scorpius looked up at him and muttered, "You _promised _you wouldn't laugh if this happened!"

"We can sort this out," Rose quickly jumped into the conversation, looking anything but amused. "You have to write a letter to your mother-"

"And Rosie can help you to write it," Albus interrupted. "She's really good at that sort of thing."

"That's right, I can help you to write it," Rose beamed, looking like somebody had just told her that Christmas had come early. "Come on, cheer up," she said as she turned back to Scorpius. "We're going to Hagrid's later, remember? And we're going to watch the first school Quidditch match tomorrow."

"Thanks," Scorpius replied, looking a lot happier.

He had just changed the subject when Victoire, Dominique and Molly ran over to the table.

"Poor Scorpius!" Victoire cried as she and Dominique sat down in the empty seats on either side of him and put their arms around him.

"I didn't think that I'd done anything wrong!" Scorpius told Victoire and Dominique, looking sulky all over again as they both nodded sadly, hanging on to his every word. Albus had a feeling that he was enjoying the attention.

He noticed that James was looking over at the two girls in disbelief from the Gryffindor table. He caught Albus's eye and made a gesture like he was pretending to vomit, meaning that Albus had to fight to supress another grin.

"_I _can sort this out, Scorpius!" Victoire was now telling him. "I'll talk to the teachers and tell them that it's all been a misunderstanding. They have to listen to me, I'm Head Girl!"

Molly made a noise of disapproval under her breath.

"What?" Victoire asked her.

"I'm just counting how many times you've mentioned that you're Head Girl this week," Molly replied as Victoire glared at her. "I think it's been seven so far, that has to be a personal best…"

"You do know that your dad was Head B-"

"Sshh!" Molly shouted frantically at Dominique, before she turned around to look at the other students. "Somebody will _hear _you!"

As they all laughed, Molly turned to look at Scorpius.

"I wouldn't worry about it too much," she told him, trying in her own way to reassure him. "You should have heard the Howler I got from my dad last year after I broke into the broom shed to borrow a broom to fly over the Forbidden Forest with! Probably didn't help that it was the fifth time I'd done it…"

As Victoire shook her head in disapproval, Molly launched into an almost perfect impression of Albus's Uncle Percy: "Do you know how long it took me to write that new draft about broomstick regulations, Molly? And then I hear that my daughter, _my own daughter_ is breaking the rules that I invented in the first place! This is the very last thing I expected! Obviously, your cousins are a bad influence on you!"

Even Victoire managed a laugh at that one as they slowly got up to head to their first classes of the day.

As they walked out of the Great Hall, Albus could overhear the conversation that was still going on between Scorpius and Victoire.

"Oh well, you wouldn't be a true Slytherin if you didn't get a Howler at some point," she was telling him jokingly. "And of course, all of the Potters and the Weasleys always get at least one, it's practically a rite of passage!"

Rose fell into step next to Albus. "Her and Teddy will be trying to adopt him next!" she whispered sarcastically with a roll of her eyes.

Albus grinned at her as Neville walked past the two of them. He stopped and stared at them for a moment, looking as though he was torn between disapproval and amusement.

"You know," he finally told them, "I thought I'd seen it all after a year with James as a student, but you three are rapidly proving that theory wrong!"

"Sorry," Albus and Rose said at the same time, deciding that it was easier to just apologise for everything, even the times when they hadn't actually done anything wrong.


	6. Potions and Explosions

"_Rose_," Albus muttered with irritation as Rose ran the comb through his hair yet again, "this is so…"

"It's so what?" Rose asked him patiently, trying not to laugh at the expression on his face.

"_Girly_," Albus finally muttered half-heartedly as Rose smiled and rolled her eyes. She had expected one of Albus's usual responses of 'boring' 'pointless' or maybe even a borrowed response from James of, "Go away Rose, I haven't got time!" whenever she tried to fix his hair as well as Albus's. 'Girly' was definitely a new one.

"I want your hair to look nice," Rose told her cousin with a shrug. "Every time I walked past you today, it looked a mess."

"We're going to _Hagrid's_," Albus sighed. "I really don't think he'll care about how tidy my hair looks."

Albus was sitting down in front of the only mirror in the first year boys' Slytherin dormitory, with Rose standing next to him, trying to do something to tidy his hair up before they left with Scorpius for one of their usual Friday afternoon visits.

Despite his constant complaints, Albus stayed sitting in the chair, only leaning forward every now and again to try to undo the knot in his school tie which he had put down on the table in front of them next to Scorpius's camera.

According to Scorpius, the tight knot had gradually appeared during a stressful Potions class that afternoon, as he and Albus had competed against each other, trying to be the one to finish their own potion first.

From what she saw during their classes together, Rose knew that Albus and Scorpius were hardly ever in direct competition against each other, but she had also heard from other students that when it came to brewing potions, it was a completely different story. Apparently, they always sat at opposite ends of the same table, working frantically as they both tried to create the best potion, occasionally trading a few joking insults to try to put each other off, as Professor Slughorn shook his head and smiled at them, which in Rose's opinion only encouraged their 'rivalry'.

Even though Rose enjoyed her Potions classes with the Hufflepuffs, sometimes she wished that she could take the class with the Slytherins instead, just so that she could join in with this particular competition. It would definitely be more challenging, if she had two students to compete against instead of one. However, she also knew that if Albus got stressed just by competing against Scorpius, who was usually so calm and relaxed, then he probably wouldn't be able to cope if she was there too, grinning smugly over at him whenever she was in the lead.

Behind Albus and Rose, three of the first year boys had set up a large cauldron in the middle of the dormitory, and they were all standing over it, trying to brew a Forgetfulness Potion like the one that they had been taught how to make in their Potions class.

Standing enthusiastically in the middle of the group of first years and shouting out instructions from their textbooks was Erica Jordan, a second year Gryffindor who had what Albus liked to call the 'dubious honour' of being the only girl allowed into James's 'gang'.

Rose had run into Erica after her last class of the day and she had ended up accompanying her on her visit to the Slytherin common room to see Albus and Scorpius, along with Kate, who always looked slightly nervous whenever Rose told her that she was going to visit the Slytherins, so in the end Rose had told her to come with her, hoping to prove the point that there wasn't much difference between the Ravenclaw and the Slytherin common room.

Ursula must have heard the other female voices from the first year girls' dormitory because after a few minutes she had knocked on the door, and after saying a quick hello to the boys she had sat in the corner of the room with Kate so that the two of them could read Ursula's copy of _Witch Weekly_ together.

Scorpius was in the middle of it all, alternating between helping Erica and the boys with the potion, running over to talk to Albus and Rose and then over to the two girls, looking thrilled about all of the activity that was going on and not seeming to mind about how crowded the room was.

Compared to how he had looked earlier in the day, Scorpius definitely seemed a lot happier, even though he had only received the Howler from his mother in the morning. Rose knew that she wasn't very good at nodding sadly or looking all teary-eyed and sympathetic the way that Dominique and Victoire were, but she hoped that she was at least partially responsible for Scorpius's good mood, especially after she had spent most of her lunch hour in the library with him, helping him to write a letter home to explain what had really happened.

As soon as he signed his name at the bottom of the piece of parchment, she had asked if she could check it again, reading over his explanations about how the 'duel' had only been a game, a game that a lot of the other students played, but he and Albus had just been unlucky enough to get caught.

She had even offered to take all of the blame for the exploding feather incident, knowing that she was at the very least equally responsible for the accident, maybe even more so, because knowing her she had probably been waving her wand around even more frantically than Scorpius had been.

However, Scorpius had refused to put all the blame on her, preferring to tell his mother that it had been a joint 'effort'.

"Maybe you really should stop the fake duels though," Rose had told him as she handed the piece of parchment back to him from across the table. "And I don't think the recreations of battles and rebellions are a good idea either-I thought that Neville was going to faint with shock the other week when he caught you all 'fighting' by the lake!"

Scorpius had looked even more embarrassed by that statement, so Rose had quickly grinned at him, hoping he would get the idea that she was joking with him rather than trying to sound disapproving.

This seemed to be another problem she had-whenever she thought of things to say to people, they usually sounded comforting or funny in her head, but sometimes when she said them out loud people looked at her as though she had said something really harsh.

"If you want," she had found herself saying before she had even thought about it, "I can help you and Albus to invent a new game to play at Hogwarts?"

"Really?" he had asked her, looking slightly surprised.

Rose had nodded slowly, waiting for some sort of comment about how the games were just for him and Albus or that only the boys were allowed to play, but to her surprise he had simply said, "Okay" before he folded the piece of parchment up and put it in his robes pocket.

"How do you think the other parents at my mum's work even found out about what happened?" he had asked her as he looked from left to right to check that none of the other students in the library were listening to the conversation.

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it?" Rose had replied, before she had sighed inwardly, realising too late that the statement had probably sounded quite abrupt. "What I mean is," she had hurriedly continued, "a lot of the parents know each other, and their children always write home to tell them about what's happening at Hogwarts, and you know how much they like to talk among themselves. Your parents must know things about other Wizarding families…"

"My parents don't really talk to a lot of the other parents," Scorpius had muttered in response.

Rose had yet again seen an image of her father in her head, angrily tearing a picture of Scorpius's family out of the _Daily Prophet_, and she knew that there had to be a story behind that response, but Scorpius had looked so uncomfortable that she hadn't been able to bring herself to ask him for any more information.

"Can you help me with the Herbology essay?" she had eventually asked him after a few minutes of silence. "I can't think of a decent conclusion, and I'm sure that some of the plant names are wrong…"

Rose hardly ever asked for help with school work, but in that moment she had decided that as Scorpius had already been in an embarrassing situation himself that day, it was okay for her to admit to him that she was struggling with something.

"Of course," he had told her, looking a lot happier as she handed a huge roll of parchment over to him and he started to read over it and make corrections at lightning speed.

"Okay, now we have to stir it three times," Erica told the boys as Rose's focus was pulled back into the boys' dormitory.

Rose sighed and turned away from them, trying her best to concentrate on combing Albus's hair. She wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of them all brewing a potion in the middle of the dormitory. She was certain that it was against the rules, not to mention potentially dangerous if it all went wrong. However, she had tried her best not to say anything, deciding that as she was in a Slytherin rather than a Ravenclaw dormitory, she probably didn't have that much say over what they could and couldn't do.

Scorpius had also looked somewhat doubtful when the boys had first suggested making the potion. Rose knew that he was probably still feeling slightly uneasy after receiving a Howler and was therefore reluctant to do anything else that might cause trouble.

However, to Rose's annoyance, Erica had managed to reassure him, saying things like, "Don't worry about it, nothing can go wrong," and, "We do things like this in the Gryffindor common room all the time!"

Rose knew from experience that nobody should ever trust a statement of, 'It's fine,' or 'Nothing can go wrong!' from Erica, James or Fred, but she also knew that they could make themselves sound quite convincing, especially to students like Scorpius who hadn't known them for very long.

After a few minutes of reassurance from Erica, Scorpius had even thought up a way of convincing Albus that it was a good idea, reasoning that they were at least doing something to help with their school work rather than simply playing some sort of practical joke, and it was therefore unlikely that they were breaking school rules.

It made Rose laugh sometimes, when she thought about how different James, Albus and Scorpius could be, especially when it came to things like breaking the rules. Usually, James broke the rules then went around proudly telling everybody that he had broken the rules. Albus broke the rules then went around anxiously telling everybody that he was really embarrassed about breaking the rules. Scorpius broke the rules then went around telling everybody that technically, he hadn't _really _broken the rules.

Rose finally let go of Albus's hair, fully expecting him to jump out of the chair and run away from her so that he could go and join Erica and the boys, but to her surprise he stayed in the seat, only turning around slightly so that he could see what they were doing.

Rose watched as his eyes fell on the cauldron, and she was certain that he wouldn't be able to resist offering some sort of suggestion.

"Erica, maybe you should stir it around one more time?" Albus suggested after a few minutes.

Both Erica and Scorpius looked over at him doubtfully.

"But, it doesn't say to do that in the instructions…" Scorpius told him.

"I know," Albus responded, "I just don't think that the colour looks right, and I'm sure it would look better if you stirred it again. Oh, and maybe add one of the berries now before you leave it to brew-it worked for me in class…."

Even though she still looked slightly uncertain, Erica stirred the liquid around whilst Scorpius picked up another berry and threw it into the cauldron.

"Wow, it worked!" Scorpius shouted in surprise.

_Don't add anymore_, Rose silently instructed, somehow hoping that they would all be able to read her thoughts just by the expression on her face. She had seen first-hand in her own Potions class what could happen when students tried to throw too many ingredients into a cauldron.

"How did you know how to do that?" Erica asked Albus, looking amazed.

"I don't know," Albus shrugged, looking embarrassed at all the attention, "I just had a feeling. Sometimes, I can think of ways to improve a potion."

"Now I know why you keep beating me in Potions class!" Scorpius exclaimed, looking like he couldn't decide whether to be annoyed or impressed.

As they waited for the potion to brew, the four boys sat patiently on the floor. Kate and Ursula edged closer so that they could get a good look at it and even Rose found herself standing on her tiptoes to try to catch a quick glimpse.

As they all waited, Erica walked over to Albus and Rose, apparently too impatient to sit still.

"Al, James was looking for you earlier," Erica told him before she pointed her wand at his tie and muttered a spell under her breath. The knot in Albus's tie suddenly loosened. "He said that he wanted to talk to you about something."

"What does he want?" Rose asked her suspiciously before Albus had the chance to speak.

In the same way that there was always a link between the phrase: 'Erica, James and Fred said that nothing could go wrong' and the phrase 'Erica, James and Fred are now in detention,' Rose knew that there was also a link between: 'James is looking for Albus' and 'Albus and James are now arguing'.

"I'm not completely sure," Erica told her with a shrug. "He said something about Halloween and a party, but he refused to tell me anything else. He disappeared last Halloween too and we never found out where he went."

"That doesn't sound good," Albus muttered, his tone almost as suspicious as Rose's.

"Come on, you know what he's like," Erica laughed. "He's always wandering off around Hogwarts."

Rose heard one of the boys say something about how the potion still didn't look exactly right, but she was distracted when Erica started talking again.

"You'd think he'd tell his _best friends_ about it though, if he really is going to some sort of party," she told them sulkily. "But whatever, it's fine," she sighed. "Just let me know if he invites you, Al," she finished before she headed back to the other students in the middle of the dormitory.

Rose only had a second to share a look of confusion with Albus before Scorpius's suggestion of, "Maybe if we just added one more berry…" caused her to slowly turn around in horror.

"Scorpius, don't-" Rose frantically tried to shout as Scorpius's hand hovered over the top of the cauldron.

But it was too late. As he let the ingredient fall from his hand, there was a brief moment of silence. Then, without warning, they were almost deafened by the noise of an explosion that had to be ten times louder than the one in Charms class. They barely had time to jump out of the way before every ounce of liquid shot out from the cauldron, flew up to the ceiling and then landed in all different directions, covering the beds, the window, the floor and each and every student in the room.

In the midst of all the noise and chaos, Rose had a few seconds to be grateful for the fact that they must have made the potion incorrectly, because it meant that the liquid was still cold and it didn't appear to do any damage to the people and objects that it hit.

As the noise gradually died down, they all stood there in silence, apparently frozen to the spot and too shocked to speak.

Ignoring an angry cry of, "What's going on in there?" from one of the prefects who had to be sitting in the Slytherin common room, Rose slowly looked around at the other students, who stared back at her with wide eyes.

She desperately wanted to shout out something along the lines of, "I _knew _that this was a bad idea!" but she found herself unable to speak.

Scorpius was the first to break the silence. "No," he whispered, putting his head in his hands. "No, no, _no_," he repeated, his voice gradually getting louder. "I'm sorry," he told them all, "I'm _so _sorry! Oh no, this is terrible! Please don't tell anyone, I'll get another Howler!"

All of a sudden, three of the boys burst into laughter, closely followed by Kate and Ursula. Erica took one look at them and did exactly the same thing, laughing so hard that she had to hold on to one of the bedposts for support.

"It's not funny!" Scorpius attempted to shout at them all, but that only caused them to laugh even harder.

Albus looked from Scorpius to the empty cauldron and then covered his face with his hands, trying to hide the fact that he too was joining in with the laughter.

Rose was just about to agree with Scorpius when she realised that she had also started to laugh. She had been so annoyed only a few seconds beforehand but now the whole thing seemed hilarious.

She wasn't sure what part of it was the most amusing-either it the sight of three of the Slytherin boys, who were usually so composed and serious when they were in the Great Hall, now holding on to each other's robes as they laughed hysterically, or it was the sight of the normally impeccably tidy Slytherin dormitory completely covered by a greenish looking liquid.

"That was _brilliant,_ Scorpius!" his fellow first year Mark shouted over the noise of the laughter.

"Nobody in Gryffindor has ever managed to do _that_!" Erica shouted at exactly the same time, tears running down her cheeks.

"Really?" Scorpius asked, finally relaxing and joining in with the laughter.

"Quick, somebody take a picture!" one of the other boys cried enthusiastically as he pointed at Scorpius's camera.

Rose found herself picking up the camera from the table as the boys grabbed Albus and Scorpius and pulled them into the middle of the room.

The girls moved out of the way so that the five boys could have a picture together.

They stood around the cauldron and smiled, their robes still covered in the remains of the potion.

As soon as Rose had finished taking the picture, Erica ran up to her. "Rose, you get in the next picture!" she smiled at her as she took the camera from her.

As Rose grinned at Erica and stood in the middle of the group of boys, she thought about all of the advice that both her mum and dad had given her before she started at Hogwarts. If she put everything that they had told her together, there were three main instructions that seemed to stand out: The first was to be sorted into Gryffindor House. The second was to not become friends with Scorpius Malfoy. The third was to stay out of trouble and try not to break the school rules.

_Well, the first two things on that list went out of the window weeks ago_, Rose thought to herself as she brushed some of the green liquid off her Ravenclaw tie and put one arm around Albus and the other around Scorpius.

Erica managed to take the picture just before one of the prefects barged into the dormitory. Rose allowed herself one more thought before she concentrated on turning towards the doorway and looking apologetic:

_And now it looks like the third piece of advice is slowly going out of the window too. And this time I can't even blame my dad_.


	7. Hallowe'en

"Don't do _anything _to embarrass me," James whispered to Albus as they both descended the flight of stairs that led to the dungeons.

"Fine," Albus hissed back at him, "then _you _don't do anything to embarrass _me_."

James rolled his eyes and gave Albus his usual how-could-_I_-ever-embarrass-_you_ look, meaning that Albus had to try extremely hard not to throw some sort of glare back at him. As they reached the final step, he concentrated on staring at the jet black candles lining the dark passageway ahead of them, hoping to distract himself from his brother's comments. He wasn't sure how exactly he was supposed to behave at a Deathday Party, but he was sure that it would be bad manners to walk through the door arguing with James.

James had been the one to invite Albus to this particular event, telling him that he had been invited the previous year by Nick the Gryffindor ghost, who held the party almost every Hallowe'en to 'celebrate' the anniversary of his death.

Apparently, their father had been a guest when he was still a student at Hogwarts, and now Nick wanted to continue the tradition of inviting members of the Potter family.

Nick had told James to pass on the invitation to Albus, something which James had done very quietly and discreetly outside the entrance to the Slytherin common room.

Although Albus had been excited at the prospect of attending the party, he hadn't been able to shake off a feeling of suspicion about the whole thing. Not only had James been so discreet about passing on the invitation, but he had also made several suggestions that it would be better to keep the whole thing a secret and not tell any of the other students about it.

This had annoyed Albus as he had wanted to invite several of his friends, especially if attending the Deathday Party meant that he was going to miss most of the Hallowe'en Feast in the Great Hall.

When he mentioned this to James over breakfast two days before the party, he had rolled his eyes and muttered, "_Fine_, but just Rose and Scorpius, okay? I don't want half of Slytherin House showing up!"

Albus had relaxed slightly after hearing that comment, deciding that James's willingness to keep the whole thing a secret was probably out of a fear of being outnumbered by the Slytherins.

However, his feeling of suspicion had returned on the Monday morning when he walked past James in the school courtyard and stopped him so that he could ask about how many of the Gryffindors would be attending.

"None of them," James had replied, his eyes darting around shiftily the whole time. "I like going by myself."

To Albus, that statement had definitely seemed strange. James rarely went anywhere alone, especially at Hogwarts, where he usually had at least one other student in tow as he ran up and down the corridors or walked through the doorway to the Great Hall at mealtimes. Sometimes, he was surrounded by up to five students, as Erica and all four of the second year Gryffindor boys often followed him wherever he went.

Albus had started to think that maybe they weren't really allowed to go to the party at all, and that James was being so secretive in the hope that nobody would find out and tell one of the professors or worse, their parents.

Still feeling uneasy after the events of the previous Friday, and more recent events that had happened over the weekend, Albus had even sent a letter home to their dad, asking if it was definitely okay to attend.

His dad had responded almost immediately, his letter consisting of one line that simply said: _Of course you can go, have fun!_

Albus had therefore calmed down and decided to stick by his usual belief that if he had his dad's approval to do something, then that automatically made it okay.

Instead, he had focused on finding Rose and Scorpius so that he could invite them, trying his best to ignore the twinge of guilt every time he walked past Fred on his way to class or the times Erica shot him a questioning glance from across the tables in the Great Hall. He felt especially bad about keeping the whole thing a secret from Erica, as it had somehow worked out that she and Rose had got into more trouble over the exploding potion incident than the Slytherins had.

As far as Albus was concerned, they had all been more or less equally responsible, but by Saturday morning the Heads of Houses had somehow found out about what happened and Professor Slughorn had been surprisingly lenient with the five boys, even though Neville and Professor Flitwick had been really angry.

As a way of easing his guilt, Albus had promised himself that after he had been to the Deathday Party and he had seen for himself what it was like, he would try his best to persuade James to invite Erica and Fred to the next one.

As they walked further down the passageway, Albus felt himself shivering slightly, convinced that the air was getting colder by the second. He was secretly grateful that James had advised him to wear warm clothing and had allowed him to borrow one of his scarves, even though it was bright red and probably looked ridiculous next to his dark green jumper. But as James had reminded him in the Gryffindor common room, the ghosts wouldn't care about the colour of his clothes.

"When we arrive, don't ask them too many questions," James suddenly whispered, making Albus jump. "Some of them can be a bit sensitive, as I found out last year…"

Albus glared at his brother, trying his best not to respond with some sort of comment about how he was the last one to be giving out advice on tact and sensitivity.

As James glared back at him, Albus looked slowly from side to side, wishing that Rose and Scorpius were also standing next to him. He knew that he would feel more comfortable if they were with him and they could all arrive as a group. However, his brother had disagreed, telling Albus that as members of the Potter family, they were the 'guests of honour' and it would therefore look better if they arrived together and also later than any of the other guests.

"Isn't _Nick_supposed to be the guest of honour?" Albus had muttered sulkily from one of the armchairs in the Gryffindor common room the moment Rose and Scorpius left for the party.

But James had simply dismissed that statement with a wave of his hand, before pointing out to Albus that he saw Rose and Scorpius every day, and it therefore wouldn't hurt him to spend fifteen minutes apart from the two of them.

Albus had been reluctant to argue back, especially after James had gone to all the trouble of going to the school kitchen to find food for their evening meal, and the four of them had sat there for at least half an hour, happily eating and talking in front of the fireplace in the empty Gryffindor common room.

Everything around them started to get darker. Albus felt a familiar twinge of nervousness, even though he had been looking forward to the party all day. As they turned a corner and approached the doorway that had to lead to the Deathday Party, he started to worry about what could be waiting on the other side of the door.

"Is it scary?" he asked James.

"Don't be ridiculous!" James scoffed. "It's fun! Anyway, nothing's going to happen to you while I'm there, is it?"

Albus was about to roll his eyes or say something to disagree with that statement, but he stopped himself at the last second. In spite of their constant arguments, deep down, he knew that both he and Lily always felt better when their older brother was around to protect them.

A few seconds later, they both stopped outside the doorway, which seemed to be decorated with black velvet drapes, although it was hard to tell for sure in the darkness.

Slowly, James pushed the door open, muttering the whole time about how Nick should have been out there waiting for them to arrive.

"Maybe we should have arrived earlier," Albus said quietly, trying not to grin as James snapped, "Very funny, Al!" sarcastically back at him.

James might have been hoping for some sort of elaborate greeting as they walked into the room, but Albus was relieved that their arrival went almost unnoticed by the ghosts, who were too busy gliding around the room in various groups, deep in conversation or watching the orchestra that seemed to be playing some sort of disjointed music.

That was until James pointedly cleared his throat and shouted, "We've arrived!" across the room before Albus had the chance to stop him.

The room went completely silent. As one, all of the ghosts in there turned to face the doorway. A few seconds later, they had floated over towards them, smiling enthusiastically as they all tried to greet them at the same time. Albus noticed that James smirked smugly as he said hello to each and every one of them individually before he introduced Albus as his younger brother.

"I'm so honoured that you're here," Nick told him in a mournful tone, before he managed a faint smile.

Albus could only nod and grin, slightly taken aback by all the attention but definitely feeling calmer now that were actually at the party. James seemed to be happy to speak for both of them; he was standing right in the middle of the group, enthusiastically telling all of the ghosts about his first few weeks as a second year and his new role as Gryffindor Seeker.

As Albus looked slowly from his brother to the ghosts, who were hanging on to James's every word as though he was some sort of star Quidditch player rather than a Hogwarts student, he suddenly realised why James had been so reluctant to invite any other students: At this party, James was the star of the show. And he didn't want to share the limelight with anybody.

After a few minutes, several of the ghosts moved away from the crowd as they went back to talking in their small groups. Albus followed their lead, slipping away from the middle of the circle and towards the back of the room. He noticed that the Bloody Baron, the Slytherin ghost, was also hovering at a distance from the large group, looking reluctant to participate in the discussion. Albus felt as though he could sympathise. As soon as he noticed Albus staring at him, he nodded politely in his direction; his mouth twisting into what Albus supposed was a smile. Albus grinned and nodded back at him.

As he tried to find Rose and Scorpius, he took the opportunity to look around, taking in the huge chandelier above his head which was filled with even more black candles and the large table in the corner with all the rotting food displayed on top of it.

His eyes fell on the dance floor and he walked slowly towards it, watching in fascination as the ghosts moved in time to the music. He stayed there leaning against the wall opposite the dance floor for at least ten minutes, his eyes trying to take in as many of his surroundings as possible.

There was something mesmerizing about the whole thing, and he was surprised that his dad had never talked about Deathday Parties at home, as it seemed to Albus like something that the guests would talk about for a long time afterwards. He decided that this was how Rose must feel whenever she was given a new challenge to complete in class or how Scorpius must feel whenever somebody mentioned the word 'Muggle'. He was almost tempted to borrow Scorpius's usual phrase and shout, "It's _so_fascinating!" out into thin air.

Albus was briefly distracted by the sight of a large pair of eyes, and as he looked closely he realised that they belonged to the ghost of the cat that he always saw in the corridors of an evening. The cat stopped and stared at him, as though it was trying to work out what he was doing there. Albus stared back and the two of them regarded each other curiously. It wasn't really that scary, Albus eventually decided, as the cat took one final look at him before it headed off in the direction of a ghostly voice that was muttering something about Peeves and complaining about having to clean up all the mess after the party.

"Scorpius, you probably shouldn't ask them about how they died…"

Albus turned his head in the direction of the voice that could only belong to his cousin and he noticed a flash of red and blond hair on the other side of the room.

"Why not? They _like _talking about it!" he heard Scorpius respond as he walked towards them.

"I'm so glad you're both here!" Albus told the two of them, meaning that they had to stop their debate about appropriate questions and turn to face him. They both grinned as soon as they saw him.

"Are you having fun?" Rose asked as Scorpius shouted, "Isn't it _fascinating_?" at exactly the same time.

Albus only had time to nod in response before they both started talking again, enthusiastically telling him about everything that he had missed in the fifteen minutes before he and James arrived and about all of the ghosts that they had already spoken to.

Albus grinned back at them, unable to completely follow the thread of their conversation as they both talked so rapidly, but simply feeling glad that they both seemed to be happy. He had spent the past few days worrying about the two of them, and also worrying that he was somehow responsible for getting them into trouble. First there had been Scorpius's Howler, then Rose had lost ten points from Ravenclaw after her Head of House had noticed the remains of the exploding potion on her school robes.

Albus had taken the opportunity to check that Rose was okay when he sat next to her during the Ravenclaw versus Hufflepuff Quidditch match on the Saturday afternoon. Surprisingly, she had grinned at him, told him not to worry about it and then told him that she had found the whole thing funny. She had even asked him to remind Scorpius to send her a copy of the picture that Erica had taken of them all standing in the middle of the dormitory.

Albus had agreed to remind Scorpius, even though he secretly hoped that Rose wouldn't try to send a copy of the photograph home to her parents. He had decided that it would definitely be a good idea to be careful about what they told the adults, especially after he had received a letter from his own parents at the weekend.

At first glance, it had looked almost exactly the same as the letters they usually sent, with several pages of news about the family and information about everything that was happening outside Hogwarts, and of course the usual reminders to stay out of trouble and to try to encourage James to do the same. However, towards the end of the letter, his parents had discreetly slipped in a line about Scorpius, hinting that they had heard about some sort of argument that he and Scorpius had supposedly had and then ending the paragraph with the line: _If it's true, Al, your mother and I would appreciate it if you could offer some sort of apology and at least try to be civil around each other._

That was the reason why Albus had spent his free time on Sunday afternoon sitting by himself in the Slytherin common room writing a long response to his parents, as he tried to explain yet again that he and Scorpius were friends and that the whole thing had been a huge misunderstanding. He had even put in a joke about how Scorpius was going to help him to beat James at Wizard's Chess, as he thought that his mother might find it funny, especially after she had spent hours jokingly complaining about James's competitiveness when it came to games like Quidditch and Wizard's Chess before they started at Hogwarts.

Then, earlier on, he had been sitting next to Scorpius at breakfast when he had suddenly muttered, "Oh _no, _I forgot to send that letter home to Mum! You know, the one that Rose helped me to write? I'll have to try to send it today, although she might not receive it until tomorrow because she's going to a Hallowe'en party tonight in Diagon Alley. Maybe I could send it to the Leaky Cauldron…"

Albus had been torn between amusement at Scorpius's forgetfulness, and anxiety at the thought that his mother might still believe that her son had spent his first few weeks at Hogwarts arguing with him and Rose.

"Your mum won't still be angry with you, will she?" Albus had asked him in as casual a tone of voice as he could manage.

"I doubt it," Scorpius had replied with a confident grin. "She never stays angry with me for long, I'm her only child."

After that, Albus had decided that maybe James had a point when he constantly told him that he worried too much about everything and he had decided to just forget about it, at least until after Hallowe'en.

As a way of making light of the situation, Rose had suggested that they stage an apology scene with Scorpius in the hope that the teachers would overhear it. They had acted the scene out in the Entrance Hall that afternoon, pleased that Neville had chosen that moment to walk past them just before he left Hogwarts to spend Hallowe'en with his wife Hannah at the Leaky Cauldron. They had tried really hard not to laugh as they apologised to each other, shook hands and promised to try to get along.

To their surprise, Neville had stood there laughing at them, telling them between fits of laughter that they had no idea why the scene looked so hilarious. He had even told them to have fun at the Deathday Party, which had surprised Albus as he hadn't been aware that the teachers knew about it.

As soon as they had both finished telling a story about a group of nuns that they had encountered at the party just before Albus arrived, Rose spotted the Ravenclaw ghost in the far corner of the room and headed over to talk to her, leaving Albus and Scorpius almost alone at the side of the room, with the exception of the Bloody Baron, who had drifted over and was hovering discreetly in the background as though he was keeping an eye on the two of them.

"It sounds like you're having a good time," Albus told Scorpius with a grin as Rose walked away. "Even though you've been annoying Rose by asking the ghosts inappropriate questions!"

Scorpius laughed before he spoke.

"Thanks for the invite," he told Albus, looking like he couldn't quite believe that Albus had thought to invite him.

Albus almost laughed at the expression on Scorpius's face. It seemed so ridiculous to him that Scorpius would be surprised by the invite to the Deathday Party. For Albus, it had now become almost second nature to include both Rose and Scorpius whenever he was invited anywhere at Hogwarts.

"It looks like James is having fun too," Scorpius whispered to Albus.

Albus turned his head to look over at James, who was still standing in the middle of a large circle of ghosts and had started to boast loudly about how Gryffindor was now in the lead for the House Cup.

"I have no idea who you're talking about," Albus jokingly replied as he turned away from his brother.

Scorpius laughed and opened his mouth to say something else, but they were both distracted by a loud cry of, "Leave me alone, Peeves!" from a few feet away.

Before they could look around to see who the voice belonged to, Albus felt a cold breeze as a female ghost swept right past him.

All of a sudden, she came to a halt in mid-air. She stayed there frozen with her back to them for a few seconds before she slowly turned around and stared at the two of them with her eyes wide.

Albus shifted uncomfortably as the ghost of a girl who only looked a few years older than he did regarded him and Scorpius with a confused expression on her face as though she couldn't comprehend the scene in front of her.

Albus stared back at her, taking in the long hair and thick glasses as he tried to work out whether he was supposed to know her from somewhere. Judging by the knowing expression on her face, she definitely seemed to know who he was.

He briefly considered the possibility that she had simply recognised him because she knew who his father was, but there was something about the way she was staring at Scorpius that told Albus that she wasn't just staring at 'Harry Potter's son'.

Albus threw one of his usual confused glances over at Scorpius, in the hope that he might be able to explain what was going on, but as usual, Scorpius shrugged back at him.

Eventually, her expression softened and the confused stare was replaced by a look of realisation.

"How time flies," she told them gently, as a smile crept to her face.

This time it was Scorpius who stared at Albus with confusion.

"How is your father doing?" Albus heard her ask. "I haven't seen him for _years_."

"He's fine," Albus replied automatically. He was used to random strangers asking about his father's wellbeing. Before he started at Hogwarts, it had happened at least once a month, and he had long since learnt that it was easier to just tell them that his dad was fine and then change the subject or walk away.

However, to his embarrassment, he realised seconds after he spoke that the female ghost had aimed the question not at him but at Scorpius.

"He's fine…I suppose," Scorpius responded uncertainly as the ghost glared over in Peeves's direction.

"Are you okay?" they both asked her at the same time.

"I'm fine…now," she told them with another grin, looking flattered by their concern. "Peeves just thought that it would be _hilarious _to throw items of food at me. _Again_." She moved closer to Albus and Scorpius as she spoke. "As I've already told him, _repeatedly_, it wasn't funny twenty-five years ago, it wasn't funny last year, and it certainly isn't funny now!"

"But surely you wouldn't actually feel it, if somebody threw something at you?" Rose asked slowly as she re-joined the group, a hand on her hip and her head tilted to one side as though she was really thinking about it.

Albus tried not to laugh as the female ghost redirected her glare from Peeves to Rose. He found his cousin's blunt statements and straight to the point comments hilarious, especially when they used against his older brother. However, a lot of other people seemed to get easily offended by some of the things that Rose said.

"Well I _suppose _that makes it okay, then!" the ghost sniped at her. "Why don't I just let everybody throw things at me, because I'm-"

"Wait a minute, I know who you are!" Rose interrupted her; apparently completely unaware that she had said anything wrong. "You're Moaning Myrtle!"

If Rose had been hoping for a better reaction, then her hopes were about to be dashed. If anything, the ghost looked even more offended by that statement, and she glared pointedly from Rose to Albus and Scorpius, as though she was trying to tell her that she would prefer to continue the conversation alone with the two boys.

"I've heard about you," Rose continued hesitantly, only just realising that the ghost was insulted by her comment. "Everybody says that you're the one who causes _all _the floods in the bathrooms. The caretaker spent a whole week cleaning up the last one!" Myrtle's expression suddenly softened as Rose continued, "And the last time you threw a tantrum, we could hear you all the way up in Ravenclaw Tower-and we're _really _high up! You were making even more noise than Peeves!"

"Really?" Myrtle asked, grinning from ear to ear as though Rose had just paid her a huge compliment.

Somehow, Rose seemed to have won Myrtle's friendship. She gradually moved closer to Rose so that she was hovering at an equal distance to all three of them. With Rose now included in the conversation, Myrtle started to ask questions about their time at Hogwarts, asking about everything from their fellow students to the other ghosts that they had seen around school.

When he thought about it, Albus was sure that he had actually heard Myrtle's name mentioned before, usually by various aunts and uncles. Although if he remembered correctly, they usually followed the mention of her name with a roll of the eyes and a generally exasperated expression.

Yet as Myrtle nodded in agreement with one of Scorpius's comments, Albus decided that he liked talking to her, even if she did laugh a little too loud every time they made some sort of joke.

"Hi, Scorpius. Hi, Rose." James walked right into the middle of their small circle as he greeted Rose and Scorpius. He nodded politely at Myrtle, but the second she stopped looking at him, he jerked his head in her direction and then shrugged at Albus, as though he was silently trying to ask him why he was even talking to her. Albus gave James a warning glance in response, hoping that he would take the hint and not say anything to offend Myrtle.

"All the ghosts think it's _brilliant _that I'm the new Gryffindor Seeker!" James told Scorpius with a grin. "I can't wait until the first Gryffindor match! I just know that we're going to _flatten _Ravenclaw!"

Rose folded her arms and glared at him. James barely noticed her; he was too busy looking over at the raised platform, where Nick had started to make a speech, thanking all of the guests for attending.

"It's a great party, isn't it?" James asked the three of them, his eyes still focused on the stage. "I bet you're all so happy that I thought to invite you!"

Albus was about to say something about how really, Nick had been the one to invite them, but Rose had already started speaking.

"Yeah, _great_party, James," she muttered. "Erica and Fred would have _loved_it…"

James rolled his eyes in her direction, before he turned away from her and Myrtle and towards Albus and Scorpius. Out of all of them, Scorpius was the only one who didn't appear to be looking at James with an expression of mild irritation. In fact, Albus had a sneaking suspicion that Scorpius actually found James's 'jokes' amusing. He secretly wondered how long that would last, especially if Scorpius started to spend time with his family outside Hogwarts during the holidays and he was around James all the time.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you all once again for attending…"

"Right, it's my turn to give a speech now!" James whispered enthusiastically as Nick reached the end of his own speech.

"What do you mean _you_ have to give a-" Rose started to ask, but James quickly interrupted her.

"Come and watch, Al!" James shouted over Rose's voice as he grabbed Albus's arm and started to lead him towards the platform, leaving a confused looking Rose and Scorpius on the other side of the room with Myrtle.

Albus could only stare at his brother suspiciously as he ran up to the platform and loudly cleared his throat. He knew very little about speeches and formal events, but he was certain that technically, the only one obliged to give a speech was Nick, as it was his party. Albus concluded that James had probably decided for himself that it would be a good idea to give his own little speech as yet another way of getting even more attention.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I…I mean, my brother and I are _very _honoured to have been invited…"

Albus almost laughed as James continued with his speech. Not because he was using what was obviously a rehearsed line about how terrifying Nick was as a ghost, but because in that moment, he reminded Albus so much of their dad.

Their dad hated giving speeches, but sometimes he had to as part of his job, and every now and again he allowed Albus and James to come along to whatever event it was so that they could watch. It was definitely amusing to Albus, the idea of James sitting there watching intently as their dad spoke and then trying to imitate his mannerisms and tone of voice.

Eventually, James finished his speech, and all of the ghosts beamed proudly at him. Some of them even appeared to be trying to wipe silver tears away from their eyes.

"Excellent speech, James!" Nick shouted out with a smile, looking anything but terrifying.

"So, what did you think?" James asked Albus as he jumped down from the platform.

"Yeah, your speech was really good," Albus responded with a grin as Rose and Myrtle moved forward to stand next to him and James. He briefly turned around and saw that Scorpius was deep in conversation with several headless ghosts, who were holding their severed heads in their arms. Albus shuddered, deciding that he had no desire whatsoever to find out why their heads were not attached to their bodies.

"Al, I have to go," Rose muttered, interrupting his thoughts. "I promised Kate I'd go to the Great Hall in time for dessert. We can save seats at the Ravenclaw table for you and Scorpius, if you want?"

"Okay, thanks," Albus replied, deciding that he probably wouldn't be able to stand the cold for much longer.

"You _must _come and visit me sometime in one of the bathrooms!" Myrtle told them with a smile as Rose prepared to leave. "_All _of you," she added with a pointed look at Rose.

Rose smiled, looking delighted to have been included in the invitation, even though it was only an invite to go and sit and talk in a bathroom. Albus knew that his cousin often worried about being left out of things, mainly due to the fact that sometimes, James deliberately tried to exclude her from certain games. However, Albus was certain that the only reason why James did this was because deep down, he knew that Rose could easily beat him at a game of Quidditch or Wizard's Chess if she put her mind to it, and James would never allow that to happen in front of his friends.

Rose smiled again and hugged Albus. She even managed to grab James for a quick hug before she headed out of the door.

"So," Albus asked his brother as soon as Rose had left, "are we allowed to attend next year or did we embarrass you too much?"

"I'm not the one who writes the guest list," James responded with a casual shrug. "But I think Nick likes having you all here. Just don't tell anyone else about it, okay?"

Albus laughed, deciding that that was probably the closest he would get to hearing James admit that he didn't mind if he showed up at the next party with Rose and Scorpius.

"Are you ready to go?" James asked him. "It's _freezing _in here!"

"Yeah," Albus replied. "We should try to find Scorpius, I can't see where he-"

"So tell me…"

Albus was instantly cut off by the sound of what was undoubtedly Scorpius's voice, the questioning tone full of curiosity. Albus had a feeling that he already knew what question Scorpius was about to ask.

"...how exactly…"

His eyes must have widened slightly as James looked at him and whispered, "Is he going to ask what I think he's going to ask?"

Albus nodded as James rolled his eyes and headed across the room. Albus found himself running after him, surprised that he and James were actually in agreement when it came to the issue of appropriate questions to ask ghosts at a Deathday Party.

"...did you d-"

"Come on Scorpius, we're going now!" James hurriedly interrupted him, lightly grabbing onto the sleeve of his robe as he marched both him and Albus out of the room.

"See you all next year!" Nick called out to them as they headed out of the door and towards the Great Hall.


	8. Parents

"_If yet another argument breaks out over a game of Wizard's Chess, Harry and I are going to hold you personally responsible!"_

Astoria Malfoy played the sentence over and over in her head as she sat in silence at a table in the corner of the Leaky Cauldron.

Argument. Harry. You. Responsible. The four words from her earlier exchange with Harry Potter's wife in Madam Malkin's that stood out painfully as she shifted uncomfortably in her seat and pretended to be deeply engrossed in a copy of _Witch Weekly_ magazine.

She was used to the strange looks from other witches and wizards in Diagon Alley, and in the past she had also had to deal with the occasional argument breaking out in the middle of a shop, although admittedly, the arguments were happening a lot less often as the years went by. But something about this particular conversation had definitely unnerved her.

"_If yet another argument breaks out over a game of Wizard's Chess…"_

What did that even _mean_? It would have been a lot easier to offer some sort of response or explanation if she had known what she was being accused of in the first place. And why had Ginevra Potter smiled at her as soon as she said it? Usually, when somebody threw insults at her or at other members of her family, the words were followed by some sort of glare or sneer or a slow shaking of the head. Never a grin. That one was definitely new.

She was almost grateful for the distraction of another conversation that was happening only a few feet away. She couldn't hear it all, but she picked up on a few of the words, mainly 'wizard', 'glaring', 'knew it was me', 'trying to shop' and 'leave in peace'. She rolled her eyes and slowly turned the page of the magazine, trying to decide whether she should feel exasperated or amused.

"It would be nice, for once, to walk into a shop like a normal member of the Wizarding World…"

_They're not even listening to you, Draco_, she thought silently as she looked from her husband, who was standing in front of his two friends in an attempt to get their full attention, to Gregory and Theodore, who were sitting opposite Draco with copies of the _Daily Prophet_ in their hands, looking a lot more interested in the contents of the newspaper than in one of Draco's usual elaborate stories about his encounters with various witches and wizards in Diagon Alley.

In any other circumstances, Astoria would have found the scene in front of her hilarious. Back when she was a student at Hogwarts, she had found conversations like these to be _very_annoying. But now she simply found it strange that after all these years, Draco still tried to cling on to this image of himself as the leader of his group of former Slytherins, believing that they were perfectly happy to follow him around and hang on to his every word.

She decided not to make any comment about the conversation though. They had both had a stressful few months, and she didn't want to spoil his half hour of fun with his friends.

Gregory caught her looking at them and grinned at her before he discreetly rolled his eyes in Draco's direction. She forced herself to grin back at him, trying her best to forget about everything that had happened over the past few weeks.

"Do you two even listen to me anymore?" she heard Draco snap at them the moment Theodore interrupted his story so that he could whisper something to Gregory.

Scared of attracting too much attention, Astoria leant forward in her seat so that she could warn him to lower his voice, but Gregory and Theodore did it for her, both muttering, "Shut up, Draco!" with exasperated grins on their faces, followed by, "I never listened to you anyway!" from Theodore.

She thought back to their school days, when Gregory in particular probably wouldn't have even dared to speak without permission, and she found herself thinking yet again about how much they had changed.

Even though Draco sighed heavily and sat back down in his seat with his arms folded, she couldn't help feeling glad for his sake that the two men were back in his life. Before September, they hadn't seen Theodore Nott for almost a year, and before then they had only seen him on the odd occasion.

Her own parents had once been friends with his father, but she had a feeling that he had deliberately kept his distance from the Malfoy family in the years that followed the Battle of Hogwarts, no doubt trying to avoid the daily drama of Ministry trials, _Daily Prophet_ photographers and insulting newspaper articles.

However, now that his eleven year old daughter was a new student at Hogwarts, he had started to show up at their house on an almost weekly basis, and they had bonded over the shared experience of sending their children away to school for the first time.

Gregory Goyle had been a completely different story. Astoria hadn't known him very well at school, but from what she had seen of him, she remembered that it had been extremely rare to see him alone at Hogwarts without Draco and Vincent Crabbe standing next to him. Yet after Vincent's death, Draco and Gregory had cut all contact, and when Astoria first started spending time with the Malfoys, she noticed that the two men often avoided each other whenever they were both in the same location at the same time.

She had assumed that Draco and Gregory's refusal to talk to each other for years was not out of anger or hostility but rather out of a fear of having to face up to the fact that the third member of their trio was no longer with them. Even though the likes of Pansy Parkinson had often told her that the friendship had definitely been strained towards the end, she was certain that the death of Vincent Crabbe must have deeply affected the two of them, and she could tell that on Draco's part at least, he found it easier to just avoid the issue rather than attempting to sit and talk about it with Gregory.

It was only after Scorpius's birth that Draco had started to mention in the occasional conversation that maybe, just _maybe_, he missed having his former friend around.

Ignoring Draco's instructions not to contact him, Astoria had taken it upon herself to get the two of them talking again, dropping very unsubtle hints to Gregory that it might be nice if he came to visit occasionally or that maybe it would be a good idea to invite Draco whenever he went for a drink with Blaise. It had worked in the end, and the two of them had apparently spent hours sitting in the corner of the Leaky Cauldron the first time that they had started talking again.

Her parents and her sister hadn't exactly been thrilled when she told them about this new found friendship. Daphne had suddenly become very protective of her as they got older, and she had always made it quite clear that she shouldn't try to get involved with people and events from the past that she had little understanding of. Her parents had simply voiced their disapproval at the idea that she was encouraging the old 'gang' to get back together. They had been annoyed enough about it two decades beforehand when Daphne had followed them around everywhere, and she could tell that they didn't really want her to do the same thing.

Draco _had_ seemed more relaxed though, after he and Gregory had been able to talk about the loss of their friend. In the same way that Astoria had needed to make her peace with her older sister and with her school bullies like Pansy Parkinson, she knew that Draco needed to have that conversation in order to start to come to terms with what had happened during the Battle of Hogwarts.

Although she couldn't help feeling that maybe there were a few more conversations that he should have had in the years after the battle.

Argument. Harry. You. Responsible. The words were back in her head again. She wondered whether Scorpius had somehow managed to provoke yet another argument in the days leading up to Halloween. Although she would be slightly surprised if that turned out to be the case. At home, she rarely had to raise her voice to her son, and whenever she did, he usually took notice of her. So she had been fairly convinced that the Howler would have shocked him into behaving.

Astoria sighed again, wishing that she hadn't just run into Harry Potter' s wife and that she could go and join in with the laughing and joking coming from the other table.

In theory, she should have felt really happy. They had all had a good time at the Halloween party the night before, and she had managed to speak to several of her classmates who she hadn't seen for a while. Then that morning she had strolled around the shops in Diagon Alley, only just starting to feel calm again for the first time in several weeks. Then she had walked into Madam Malkin's.

It wasn't just about the exchange in Madam Malkin's though, if she was honest with herself. She had been feeling nervous and uneasy for a while. For most parents, it was extremely difficult to send their children away to Hogwarts for the first time, perhaps even more so for the parents who only had one child. The whole thing was twice as difficult when your only child had grown up in a family with a reputation that still lingered after almost two decades and you were absolutely terrified about what the other students might say to him.

As soon as Scorpius had learnt how to walk and talk, she and Draco had spoken in detail about how much they should tell him about the past. There had been moments when she had considered telling him everything, so that he was prepared for the all of the comments and questions that would inevitably come his way as soon as people found out about who his father was.

But then she had looked over at him as he ran to hug his father and grandparents or happily played games with Gregory Goyle, Blaise Zabini or even Pansy Parkinson, and she had always stopped herself from telling him too much.

To Scorpius, Draco was just his dad who taught him how to play Quidditch and shared private jokes with him from across the dining table. To Scorpius, Lucius was just his grandpa who read books with him and sat with him for hours on end, patiently teaching him how to play Wizard's Chess.

When Scorpius spent time with friends of the family, he saw them not as members of Slytherin House who were trying to repair a damaged reputation, but simply as the adults who always spoke to him whenever they came around to visit his mum and dad.

Scorpius knew a few things though. He knew about his father's behaviour at school, he was aware of certain insulting comments which he had made to other students. He had heard vague stories about a fight and a scar and a tattoo. He also knew several stories about his grandfather's past, as Lucius Malfoy was a lot more direct when he spoke to his grandson than they were.

The strange thing was that the more information Scorpius found out about his family, the more protective he seemed to become. He was very cautious about revealing information about them to strangers for fear that they would somehow use it against him, and it was not uncommon for him to stand almost defensively in front of his father or grandfather whenever he felt as though people were saying things about them.

Astoria understood the close bond between grandfather, father and son, but at the same time they had always made it very clear to Scorpius that they expected him to behave when he started at Hogwarts, that they didn't want the same things to happen all over again.

After Scorpius was born, they had tried as best they could to stay out of the public eye, but it wasn't always possible, and Scorpius was well aware of the fact that the family always attracted stares and the occasional comment whenever they were out in public together.

Astoria always hated it when Scorpius was forced to listen to these insulting comments. She knew from personal experience how difficult it could be to suddenly have to deal with strange looks and negative remarks. Although she had been in her early twenties when she first had to deal with the public situations, and she had been well aware of what she was getting herself into when she became an official member of the family, unlike Scorpius who must have only been about three years old when he had first started to hear some of the comments.

In the end though, she had been forced to accept the fact that she could do very little about the negative opinions. She had also decided that instead of getting involved with arguments or gossip, it was better to avoid attracting attention and to focus instead on constantly telling Scorpius that the insults were never aimed at _him_, that he hadn't done anything wrong.

Secretly, she had felt a faint glimmer of hope on the first of September when she caught a glimpse of the two families standing at the other end of Platform 9 ¾ and she realised that Scorpius would be in the same year as Harry Potter's son and Ronald and Hermione Weasleys' daughter. She had hoped for some sort of friendship between Scorpius and the Potter and the Weasley children, not because of who their parents were, but simply because they seemed like nice children.

Unlike her father, who saw Harry Potter as the undisputed hero of the Wizarding World, Astoria had never really been interested in the hero worship of wizards like Harry Potter. She was sure that this attitude probably had something to do with the fact that she had spent most of her school years surrounded by witches and wizards who blatantly couldn't stand him, their Head of House included. It had been difficult not to be somewhat influenced by the attitudes of the people around her, especially during her early teens when she had been a lot more naïve.

But no matter what she had thought about him when she was younger, and no matter what certain members of her family apparently still thought about him, she knew that there was no denying the fact that he had achieved great things. And when it came to the Potter and the Weasley family as a whole, there was no denying the fact that they had done an excellent job in raising their children.

She had often walked past the Potter and the Weasley children in Diagon Alley, where they were always laughing and joking or even throwing snowballs at each other in the winter, usually wearing adorable matching jumpers.

She had heard several stories about them all from Hermione Weasley on the few occasions when they spoke to each other at work, and she loved the idea that all of the brothers and sisters spent so much time with their cousins and extended family. Astoria had only had her sister Daphne for company during her childhood, and the two of them hadn't exactly been close friends, especially during their teenage years, and Draco, like Scorpius, was an only child, so neither of them had had that experience of spending Christmas holidays with cousins or close friends of the family.

Even Pansy Parkinson spoke somewhat fondly of the boy with black hair and green eyes who always smiled at her whenever she walked past him in the street. It was extremely rare for Pansy to speak affectionately about _anybody_, so Astoria had therefore assumed that there had to be something special about Harry Potter's son.

On the first of September, she had looked over at Albus Potter for a few seconds as he climbed onto the train with an uncertain expression on his face and wondered out loud why people were staring at his family, and she had been reminded so much of her own son.

Based on pieces of information that she had overheard about the Potter family, she had worked out that Albus, like Scorpius, knew very little about the details of the past and the exact reasons why his father was so famous. She had also heard that the Potter children found it strange that their father attracted so much attention whenever he went out in public. She knew that her own son often felt the same feelings of confusion and uncertainty, and she had wondered whether the two boys actually had a few things in common.

She had hoped that the two boys might establish some sort of friendship at school so that maybe in some way they could have helped each other to understand and to deal with their discoveries about the past as they got older.

But now it looked as though the exact opposite had happened.

She had felt so optimistic as well, that morning on Platform 9 ¾, especially after Draco had for the most part managed to ignore the insults that they had overheard from the other side of the platform, and not once had he suggested to Scorpius that he should stay away from Albus and Rose. For the first time in over eleven years, she had started to think that maybe the rivalry was slowly coming to an end.

He had warned her not to build her hopes up though, later on in the day as they sat around a table in the Leaky Cauldron, both of them trying to comfort a surprisingly emotional Marcus Flint as he cried about sending his oldest son away to Hogwarts for the first time.

"I wouldn't expect them to all suddenly become best friends or anything!" he had shouted over the sounds of Marcus's sobs. "Especially if Ronald Weasley's spent the past decade warning his daughter and nephew to stay away from Scorpius!"

Astoria could tell by the way he said it that it probably wasn't just Ronald Weasley who wasn't overly keen on the idea of a close friendship. She knew more or less how Draco felt about the situation. He didn't want Scorpius to spend seven years at school miserable and arguing with the Potters and the Weasleys, but at the same time, he had never said that he actually wanted Scorpius to be their best friend.

She had therefore decided that it probably _was_slightly unrealistic to expect the three of them to be really good friends, especially if Albus and Rose's parents and relatives shared a similar attitude. But she had also decided that maybe it didn't matter very much, as long as the three of them tried their best to get along or could at least manage polite conversations with each other.

She had always had a feeling that Scorpius would be sorted into Slytherin House, so it hadn't been much of a surprise when he sent a letter home to announce the results of the Sorting Ceremony. The big surprise had been the announcement in the first paragraph of his letter that Albus Potter was also a new member of Slytherin House.

Scorpius wrote a few lines about how the other Slytherin students had applauded for at least ten minutes at the announcement, but at the time she hadn't detected any hint of jealousy in his writing, he just seemed to be slightly surprised by the students' reaction.

If Scorpius had been surprised by the news that Albus Potter had been sorted into Slytherin, it was nothing to how his father felt. Draco seemed to find the whole thing mildly amusing, and had taken to telling anybody who would listen about the results of the Sorting Ceremony, from his mother to his sister-in-law to Blaise Zabini to Gregory Goyle.

It was only after Blaise started to make comments along the lines of, "Can you _imagine_ the look on Potter's face when he found out?" that Astoria had made the decision to ban all mention of the Potter-in-Slytherin story both in her home and in public, as she knew that it would only cause trouble if the 'jokes' were overheard by any friends of the Potters.

In his second letter, Scorpius mentioned something about how intelligent Rose Weasley was, and that she always seemed to get full marks in tests. Again he seemed to say it without a hint of jealousy, and Astoria had felt happy that at the very least, he didn't seem to dislike Albus and Rose, and that maybe one day they could progress to some sort of friendship.

It had all been going so well, right up until mid-October when she had walked into work one morning and heard what seemed like hundreds of stories from other parents about how Scorpius had walked into his Charms class arguing with Albus Potter and had apparently taken his anger out on Rose Weasley by causing some sort of explosion. And then a few weeks later he had gone on to challenge Albus Potter to a duel. The worst thing about it was that most of her colleagues had told the stories with exasperated grins on their faces, almost as though the rivalry was to be expected, as though there was nothing that anybody could do about it.

But for Astoria, the whole thing definitely hadn't been a joke. No matter what the other students might have said to Scorpius to get him so angry, and no matter who had started it, she knew that the professors definitely wouldn't tolerate his bad behaviour. A lot of the teachers at Hogwarts had worked there in the years leading up to the war, and they had been forced to endure years of bitter rivalries between and within the four Houses. If Scorpius was taking part in duels or causing dangerous explosions, then he could be suspended, or even expelled.

At first, she had been upset at the thought that her shy and sensitive son had suddenly become so angry and aggressive after less than two months at Hogwarts. Then she had felt even worse as she started to imagine what the other students must have said to get him so annoyed in the first place. She had also felt humiliated as she imagined what the professors must have been saying about her. She had a feeling that they would probably have assumed that she and Draco were encouraging the whole thing.

The rest of her family hadn't been very helpful in dealing with the situation. Her parents had been _really_ disappointed. They had always been so careful about not attracting negative attention in public and they were fairly strict with Scorpius when it came to his behaviour.

Draco and his parents had fallen back on their usual defence mechanism of going into complete denial about the whole thing, claiming that it had _obviously _been a mistake and that Scorpius would _never _behave like that.

The denial had been worse than her parents' disappointment. How could they know for sure that Scorpius would never behave like that? No child could behave perfectly all the time, and he had definitely had his moments when he was younger, usually when he had been told that he wasn't allowed to do something or if he felt like they were hiding something from him.

After several days of obsessing over the problem, Astoria had somehow reached the decision that the best course of action would be to send a Howler to Scorpius, not only to remind him that he wasn't going to get away with breaking rules, but also to let the teachers and the other students know that she was in no way encouraging his behaviour.

Ideally, she would have liked for Draco to have got involved. He wasn't very strict with Scorpius, and Astoria often jokingly accused him of being too lenient, but on the few occasions that he did raise his voice, Scorpius always did as he said without trying to answer back or talk his way out of it the way he sometimes did with her.

But as usual, he had insisted on staying out of the whole thing, saying things like, "You can't expect me to get involved in this!" and "How do you think it would look to the professors, if I got angry at my son for challenging one of the Potters to a duel? It would look slightly hypocritical…"

"You didn't challenge Harry Potter to a duel in first year, did you?" Astoria had asked him suspiciously the day before she sent the Howler.

"The possibility of a duel _might_ have come up in conversation," he had responded vaguely.

It was only after she had sent it that she started to regret her decision. She had suddenly realised that if she sent a Howler and the other parents didn't, then Scorpius might feel even more resentful at the thought that the Potters and the Weasleys had got away with it whilst he had been forced to take all the blame.

She had also started to wonder whether she herself had been slightly hypocritical. Astoria liked to think that she had behaved well at school and that she had never been a bully like some of the older Slytherin girls, but she had by no means been a perfect student when she was at Hogwarts. She had gone through a phase of believing that she was better than certain students because of her family background. For at least three years she had barely spoken to any of the Muggle-born students. She had made a few comments that had really offended people, especially in the run-up to the Battle of Hogwarts when tensions had been running high.

Astoria turned the page of the magazine again, desperately trying to distract herself so that she didn't get lost in memories of the past. She wondered whether Scorpius was sulking about the Howler. She hadn't heard from him for a while and she was really starting to miss his letters. She wished that he would get in touch so that she could make sure that he was okay.

She noticed that Theodore and Gregory had got up from their seats and were getting ready to leave.

"I hope everything works out with Scorpius," Gregory muttered in her direction.

Theodore looked at the two of them with a confused expression, and Astoria suddenly realised that she hadn't told him about what was going on at Hogwarts.

"My daughter told me that Scorpius hangs around Harry Potter's son all the time…" Theodore said slowly, sounding as though he was unsure whether to be shocked or impressed by this piece of information.

Astoria looked up from her magazine, wondering whether she should dare to feel some sort of hope that the two boys had finally worked out their differences.

"Although she did say something in her last letter about an explosion in the boys' dormitory that Scorpius caused, and I think Potter's son was there at the time…"

Astoria sighed heavily as the disappointment washed over her. This was getting ridiculous.

Theodore's lips curled into a smirk. "I don't think Potter's going to be very happy with you two, if your son's responsible-"

"I don't think it's very funny, Theodore!" Astoria snapped at him, just as two elderly witches walked past the four of them and threw a disapproving glare in her direction. She could almost hear the word 'typical!' that would no doubt be muttered the second the two women went outside.

Unfortunately, other witches and wizards tended to see her not when she was sitting quietly with her son as they read books together or when she was sitting at the dining table talking calmly to members of her family, but instead when she was in the middle of Diagon Alley, arguing with her husband and his friends or awkwardly trying to walk past former members of Gryffindor House without causing a scene.

Astoria glanced around at the other tables, checking to see if anybody else was staring at them. Her eyes fell on a witch and a wizard who were sitting next to each other at a table in the far corner of the pub. After staring at them for a few seconds, she suddenly realised why they looked so familiar.

The woman was Hannah Longbottom, a former Hogwarts student who was now the Landlady of the Leaky Cauldron. The man sitting next to her was her husband Neville Longbottom, another former student and more importantly, one of Scorpius's teachers. Astoria had read enough about him in books and on the back of Scorpius's Chocolate Frog Cards to know that he was a respected teacher at Hogwarts, and could even be in line to be Headmaster one day.

If she could just talk to him for five minutes, she could try to explain…

She looked over her shoulder, and noticing that Draco was still distracted saying goodbye to his friends, she jumped out of her seat and headed in Neville Longbottom's direction, the jumbled up words of an apology already forming in her mind.


	9. Past and Present

Hermione Weasley hastily scribbled her signature at the end of a long roll of parchment before she folded it back up and placed it next to the other pieces of parchment on the right hand side of the sofa.

The books that were stacked up in a pile on the arm of the chair wobbled precariously as she moved her hand, but she managed to grab them just in time before they fell all over the floor.

Hugo and Lily, who had sat all afternoon on the living room floor happily playing games and drawing pictures, briefly looked over at her, but then they seemed to decide that whatever they were doing was a lot more interesting than Hermione's seemingly endless rolls of parchment from work, and they hurriedly looked down at the floor again, grinning as they dipped their quills into a bottle of blue ink.

Hermione moved forward slightly in her seat so that she could see what they were up to. She smiled to herself as she realised that they had been drawing a picture of what looked like the car that belonged to her and Ron, and now their drawing appeared to be moving across the piece of parchment of its own accord, almost as though the car was flying.

A lot of household objects seemed to lift themselves off the ground and move or float around in mid-air whenever Lily and Hugo were around, and now it looked like their pictures were no exception.

Hugo suddenly realised that Hermione was watching them. "Do you think that Rosie'll like it?" he asked her, holding up the piece of parchment so that Hermione could get a better look.

She felt a rush of emotion as she looked from the picture to the scribbled sentences and she realised that they were writing a letter to Rose.

Hugo had already started to ask questions about how many weeks were left until his sister came back home for Christmas, trying to keep his voice as casual as possible when he did so, and for the past few weeks, Ron's eyes had occasionally flickered over in the direction of the Muggle calendar that was displayed on their kitchen wall.

They all missed Rose, even though they were really happy that she was having such a good time at Hogwarts, and according to Ron (who for some strange reason liked to keep count), she had already managed to get full marks in three class tests.

"I'm sure that she'll love it," Hermione assured her son and niece.

The picture at the top of the letter shouldn't have been that surprising really. Rose and Albus loved to invent imaginative stories to share with their younger cousins, and the flying car story was a particular favourite of Lily and Hugo's. They would always beg Albus or Rose to tell the story '_Just one more time!'_ before they had to go to bed, usually as they all sat by the fireplace at The Burrow.

It seemed to be one of Ron's favourite stories as well, as he would often beam with pride whenever Rose started to tell it, but then he would always hurriedly leave the room whenever Roxanne or Louis asked to hear one of the giant spider stories.

"I haven't heard from James for _ages_!" Lily told her, looking scandalised. "I hope he sends a letter soon, he promised he'd let me know as soon as he decides what he's going to do for his end of term practical joke!"

"I'll just pretend I didn't hear that Lily," Hermione replied, unsure as to whether she should voice her disapproval or leave it to Harry and Ginny (and probably George and Angelina) to deal with as soon as the inevitable practical joke was carried out.

"Albus sent a letter this morning though," Lily continued. "He said that he went to a...a what was it called?" She paused as she tried to remember the correct words. "The party? With the ghosts?"

"A Deathday Party," Hermione answered.

"That's right," Lily nodded. "He said that he really enjoyed it! I think he's going to go next year as well!"

Hermione tried her best not to look surprised by the news that Albus had enjoyed that particular party so much. She wondered whether she was missing something, or whether Deathday Parties had somehow changed over the years, because as far as she was concerned, the one that she had attended during her second year at Hogwarts hadn't exactly been a fun event, and at the time she had had no desire whatsoever to repeat the experience. Yet for some reason, her nephew already seemed to be looking forward to the next one.

James had been exactly the same the year before, when Nearly Headless Nick had decided, after a break of more than a decade, to start marking the anniversary of his death again with a party at Halloween and he had made a point of inviting James.

Harry and Ginny had looked slightly baffled the following week when they sat at Ron and Hermione's kitchen table, reading out a letter from James that seemed to consist of endless questions as to why nobody had ever mentioned Deathday Parties before, along with a very detailed description of the speech he had given and statements about how _amazing _it had been, followed by what appeared to be a very serious offer to help his dad to write his next Ministry of Magic speech.

"I wish that _I _could go to a Deathday Party!" Lily suddenly shouted.

"Do you think we'll get to go to one when we start at Hogwarts?" Hugo asked her enthusiastically.

As they launched into one of their usual excited discussions about everything that they planned to do at Hogwarts, Hermione forced herself to open a huge old book about Magical Law Enforcement. She had been carefully studying its chapters for several weeks as she campaigned to change yet another old law that had remained firmly in place for what seemed like hundreds of years, and she had only just started to make some progress in getting it modified.

She sighed as she thought about all of the work that she would have to complete in the next few days. The weeks leading up to the Christmas holidays were always hectic at the Ministry of Magic.

She was already looking forward to the first day of the holidays when Rose would return home from Hogwarts and they could spend a few days at her parents' house before they went to the annual post-Christmas party at The Burrow.

From what she had heard, Molly was already busy knitting Weasley jumpers, a tradition that she had always kept to, even in the years that followed the Battle of Hogwarts, and the list of recipients seemed to grow every year.

The party during the Christmas holidays was always the highlight of the year, and Rose and Hugo loved being able to spend time with all of their cousins at once, as well as several friends of the family and even a few classmates of Hermione and Ron's nieces and nephews.

James had broken the record for the number of guests the previous year when he had decided to invite all nine of his fellow first year Gryffindors, and the house had definitely been more crowded than usual, especially after Luna and Rolf showed up with their sons, closely followed by a few other former Hogwarts students, but nobody had minded.

Every year they simply felt grateful to be there together, finally free to laugh and joke and enjoy the parties without the constant threats and tensions of the past, something which James liked to highlight in his 'Christmas speech' that he gave to them every year as he stood on one of the kitchen chairs with a glass of pumpkin juice in his hand.

Hermione was distracted by the sound of laughter coming from the kitchen. George had arrived a few hours ago to discuss some of the finer points of his joke shop business with Ron, who still helped him with the running of the shop in Diagon Alley whenever he could. But as soon as Lee Jordan had arrived, the 'business meeting' had rapidly turned into laughter and jokes around the kitchen table, complete with a few glasses of Butterbeer.

She was sure that the three men would be sitting there for the rest of the day. She wondered if it would be a good idea to suggest a trip to the Leaky Cauldron, as soon as Ginny arrived to collect Lily and she had finished her work.

They _had_ been planning to go to Diagon Alley the night before to celebrate Halloween. There was always some sort of party going on there at the end of October and Hermione had heard that Neville was going to be there with Hannah. But they had also heard rumours that several former members of Slytherin House were hanging around the Leaky Cauldron, celebrating some sort of private party of their own, and Ron had suddenly lost all enthusiasm to go anywhere near Diagon Alley.

They were still getting used to the idea of seeing the former Slytherins on a regular basis. After the Battle of Hogwarts, most of them seemed to have completely disappeared, especially those whose parents had been linked with Death Eater activity and had faced trials at the Ministry of Magic.

The truth was that Hermione hadn't thought about their absence from public events very much, especially during those early years after the final battle when everything had been surrounded by such chaos and confusion.

Life had been difficult for all of them after the war, even though several of the history books that she had read about that period seemed to make out that everything had returned to normal in a matter of months and they had all been free to go out and celebrate the victory.

The grief had been so raw during those early months, and it had taken a long time for people to recover from the shock of what had happened during the battle.

The grief had been closely followed by a sense of confusion, as they all tried their best to rebuild Hogwarts and make decisions about what would happen to the Wizarding World in the future.

After the confusion came the anger, resulting in the many, _many _trials aimed at punishing those who had been in any way involved with Death Eater activity.

Hermione had never personally felt the sense of anger that had been so widespread in the Wizarding World at the time. After everything that she had been through with Harry and Ron, and after feeling both a sense of sadness over things that had happened in the past and a strong sense of hope for a better future, she had decided that there was no place for feelings of anger and hostility after the Battle of Hogwarts.

She had therefore supported Harry's decision to defend certain witches and wizards at their trials, and had even offered to read up on past trials for him to help him to prepare. But she was also well aware of the fact that Harry's decision to help families like the Malfoys to avoid imprisonment in Azkaban was in many ways an attempt to make peace with them all, so that they could leave each other alone and move into the future without having to deal with old arguments and rivalries.

Emotions had still been running high during that period, and Hermione had been certain that they all needed some distance from the Slytherins who had been in their year at school, who even after their parents' trials still appeared to harbour feelings of resentment, although they did seem to show some sort of begrudging gratitude to Harry for everything that he had done for them.

It was only during the celebrations to mark the ten year anniversary of the victory at the Battle of Hogwarts that Hermione had started to think again about the rivalries between the Houses that had been so apparent during her time at school.

One of the main celebrations had taken place outside in the Hogwarts grounds, and along with Harry and Ron, she had been invited as one of the guests of honour to give a speech at the start of the evening.

Later on that night, Hermione had looked around at the crowds of witches and wizards and she had suddenly realised that although she was surrounded by former Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, the members of a certain House were notably absent from the celebrations.

She had felt almost saddened at the thought that they weren't part of that event at Hogwarts, and that in many ways the divide was still there amongst the adults, even though it was rarely talked about and wasn't as obvious as in the past.

There _had_ been some improvement though, over the years.

In recent years, they had managed to get onto speaking terms with a few former members of Slytherin House. Blaise Zabini always nodded politely and said hello to them whenever he walked past them in Diagon Alley, and Theodore Nott occasionally approached them to make polite conversation and to ask how Rose and Hugo were doing, usually when his wife and daughter were with him.

They had even managed to get a greeting out of Marcus Flint as they left King's Cross Station in September, even though he had openly disliked Ron and Harry during their Quidditch-playing years at Hogwarts. He had muttered a quick, 'Good morning' over in their direction before he suddenly broke down in tears, saying something about how his son was growing up so fast, as Ron and Harry slowly moved away from him with matching shocked expressions on their faces.

And then there were Albus and Rose, who seemed to get on so well with their sons and daughters.

Hermione found herself thinking about some of the names that Rose had mentioned in several of her letters:

_Yesterday, Kate and I sat in the Slytherin common room with Ursula reading her copies of _Witch Weekly _magazine. Ursula seems really nice, and she helps Albus with his Astronomy homework sometimes…_

_Last weekend, Mark played Quidditch with us, he was really good! __We'll probably ask him to play again in the next match!_

_I was working with Scorpius in Charms class the other day and the feather that we were trying to levitate exploded! I was so embarrassed Mum! But at least it gave James and Fred a laugh when we told them about it afterwards…_

Hermione had half-expected Ron to make some sort of comment about a few of Rose's new-found friendships, but after a while, she had decided that as their daughter's letters were so full of stories about students from each of the four Houses, perhaps her mentions of certain Slytherin students had gone almost unnoticed.

The laughter rang out again, and Hugo and Lily looked up from the piece of parchment, which was now spread all over the living room floor, with expressions of curiosity.

Hermione smiled at the two of them and jokingly rolled her eyes.

There was definitely something refreshing about hearing George's laughter. For many years after the Battle of Hogwarts, he had been so lost without his twin brother, and they had all been afraid that he would never truly find happiness again.

Hermione knew that he would always feel that sense of loss, but his marriage to Angelina and then the birth of his son and daughter seemed to have helped him with the healing process.

His son Fred reminded them all so much of both George and his late brother. As soon as he started at Hogwarts, he seemed to have picked up where they had both left off, always getting involved with practical jokes and constantly searching for secret passageways out of the school.

George's eyes always lit up whenever his son ran towards him on Platform 9 ¾ at the start of the holidays, eager to share his stories with his dad and younger sister about his new discoveries at Hogwarts and the details of his latest practical joke.

George was also thrilled by the friendship between Fred, James and Erica, often telling Harry and Lee Jordan at various family parties that he couldn't ask for better friends for his son, usually followed by a joking comment from Lee that after a year of explosions and detentions, the Hogwarts professors probably wouldn't agree with him.

In some ways, present day friendships seemed to be a lot easier and a lot more relaxed, especially when compared to the situation two decades beforehand.

It was now extremely rare for young witches and wizards to judge their fellow students based on their blood purity or their family connections, the subject having become almost a taboo topic. It was considered to be impolite to ask for too many details about somebody's family background, and students from pure-blood families were often reluctant to mention this fact in casual conversations.

Even though there was still a sense of rivalry between the current Gryffindor and Slytherin students, it was nowhere near as intense as the rivalry that Hermione had experienced during her time at Hogwarts. If anything, things seemed to have gone to the other extreme, with professors like Neville Longbottom and Horace Slughorn often going out of their way to discourage any sort of argument between the two Houses.

Hermione could understand their attitudes in a way. She had asked Neville about it the year before, when she had been in Hogsmeade one afternoon for work purposes and she had met up with Neville and Hannah for a drink, and James and Fred had only days beforehand jokingly complained in one of their letters to Ron that Neville had given them a detention for getting into an argument with a few of the older Slytherin students.

Neville had shrugged and quietly told her that he had always hated the Gryffindor versus Slytherin arguments when he was at school, and that he had seen enough duels to last him a lifetime, and therefore had no wish to hear his own students arguing all the time.

As for Horace Slughorn, he simply refused to tolerate any sort of behaviour that could lead to the loss of points from Slytherin House and spoil their chances of winning the House Cup.

Professor Slughorn hadn't exactly been Hermione's favourite teacher when she was at Hogwarts, but she couldn't deny that he had done wonders in helping Slytherin House to repair its damaged reputation. And like Horace Slughorn, Hermione was also convinced that her nephew Albus would go even further in helping to reverse negative opinions.

Hermione was suddenly distracted by the sight of their family owl fluttering past the living room window with a letter tied to its leg.

"Do you think that's a letter from Rose?" Hugo asked her eagerly, echoing Hermione's thoughts.

"It could be," Hermione responded as the owl disappeared from view and she heard the sound of somebody opening the kitchen window.

"In her last letter she mentioned something about sending photographs of Hogwarts!" Hugo told her with a grin, his eyes darting in the direction of the kitchen as though he was trying to decide whether he should run in there and grab the letter.

"I'm sure that Dad will bring the letter in for you and Lily to read if it is from your sister," Hermione reassured him.

Hermione hoped that it really was a letter from Rose. She loved to read her daughter's stories about her time at Hogwarts. She was glad that Rose was not only working hard but also finding time to have fun and make new friends.

She was also happy that Rose and Albus were still spending time together at school. In the same way that James and Fred seemed to have decided to be friends even before they could walk and talk, Albus and Rose had always shared a close bond. They were both very different to their cousins, even though they got along really well with all of them. They had their own sense of humour and private jokes, and they liked to invent their own stories and games.

James seemed to have made himself the unofficial leader of the younger members of the family, but Albus and Rose refused to follow him everywhere, instead preferring to make their own decisions and to do things their own way. And judging by recent letters from the two of them, Hermione had a feeling that they had now found somebody else to share their friendship with.

"It's gone really quiet, hasn't it?" Lily asked in a mock whisper, as she looked over towards the living room door before grinning back at Hugo.

Hermione found herself looking in the direction of the kitchen as well, surprised that the loud conversation seemed to have died down.

"Hermione!" Ron suddenly called out to her.

"I'll be back in a minute," Hermione told her son and niece with a sigh, before she slammed the book shut and slowly headed into the kitchen.


	10. Parents and Teachers

"Neville, I'm so sorry!" Astoria shouted breathlessly as she approached his table in the corner of the Leaky Cauldron. "He didn't mean it. Well, maybe in a way he _did _mean it, but you have to understand how difficult it can be for him sometimes, with the things that people say…Not that I'm condoning his behaviour! He's never done anything like that at home! He knows that he has to follow certain rules. We'll talk to him, as soon as he comes back home for Christmas, but please don't think that-"

Astoria stopped herself mid-sentence as she caught a glimpse of the expression on Neville Longbottom's face. His eyes were wide and he was staring at her with what looked like a mixture of shock and confusion. His wife was also staring at her, looking equally shocked.

As she tried to catch her breath and calm herself down, she suddenly realised (perhaps a few seconds too late) that Neville probably had no idea who she was. They had barely spoken to each other at school and they hadn't seen each other since.

She hadn't even mentioned Scorpius's name as she ran up to their table shouting frantically at the two of them, no doubt interrupting what was supposed to be a quiet and peaceful moment between husband and wife before Neville had to leave to go back to Hogwarts.

She felt a blush creep to her face as she imagined what her parents and sister would say if they saw her making such a scene in public.

Neville cleared his throat nervously before he spoke. "I'm really sorry, but I don't know-"

"Astoria," Hannah interrupted him with a whisper, her eyes flickering in the direction of the door to the pub before she looked pointedly from Astoria to Neville as though that would explain everything. The look of confusion remained on his face as he turned to wife and shrugged.

The confusion didn't last for long. In fact, his baffled expression cleared instantly at the sound of the approaching footsteps and-

"What are you _doing_?" Astoria heard Draco whisper frantically from behind her. She turned around slowly, trying to decide whether it would be better to look over warningly at Draco or apologetically at Neville and Hannah.

In her moment of panic, she had completely forgotten that Neville Longbottom was not only a former member of Gryffindor House but also one of Harry Potter's friends, and it was therefore very likely that he was on Draco's long list of the people he would prefer to avoid when they were out in public.

"Astoria Malfoy," Hannah whispered needlessly.

"Yeah, I realised that," Neville whispered in response as he looked over in Draco's direction.

Draco stood with his arms folded and an expression on his face that clearly said he was uncomfortable and would rather be as far away from the table as possible.

Astoria settled for throwing the usual warning glance in his direction, silently telling him not to roll his eyes or make any comment that could be interpreted as an insult.

An awkward silence descended on the table as they all looked at each other uncertainly, waiting for somebody to speak. Astoria took a few deep breaths as she tried to think of something mature and intelligent to say to ease the tension.

"Scorpius wouldn't normally challenge a student to a duel!" she blurted out in panic as she looked at Neville again.

It wasn't exactly an articulate way of expressing herself, but at least the Longbottoms looked slightly less confused and uncomfortable compared to how they had looked a few minutes ago.

"_Oh_," Neville muttered, a look of realisation crossing his face as though this whole bizarre situation suddenly made sense to him, "you were talking about _Scorpius_. You don't know yet, do you?"

"Don't know what?" Astoria asked nervously, starting to feel even more anxious. Both Neville and Hannah looked at her almost sympathetically.

"Do you want something to drink?" Neville asked her after a few more seconds of silence. His tone of voice sounded slightly uncertain as he gestured to the two empty seats at the opposite side of the table and his eyes focused on Draco.

"Okay," Astoria instantly replied before she had even thought about it.

Ignoring Draco's heavy sigh, she sat down in the empty seat opposite Neville before he could change his mind.

She tried her best to keep her expression neutral and not look too shocked by the invitation, even though she couldn't help but feel slightly taken aback. With the exception of their small group of friends, nobody ever invited the Malfoys to sit and have a drink in public, and Astoria didn't want to pass up on the opportunity. For all she knew, it might never happen again. Besides, now that she had calmed down slightly, she wanted to talk to Neville about Scorpius.

She looked over at Draco, who had remained standing and was now giving her the you're-not-seriously-going-to-make-me-do-this-are-you? look which he usually reserved for the times when she or Gregory Goyle suggested that it might be a good idea to move on from the polite nods and one-word greetings and actually try to have some sort of conversation with the Potters and the Weasleys when they passed them in Diagon Alley.

After a few seconds of hesitation, Draco sat down slowly in the seat opposite Hannah, his arms still folded almost protectively across his chest. Astoria felt a brief twinge of guilt at the thought of making him sit there with the Longbottoms, but after a few seconds she decided that the need to talk to Scorpius's teacher about his behaviour at Hogwarts was more important than an old Gryffindor versus Slytherin rivalry.

The moment Hannah got up from the table so that she could go and get the drinks, Astoria attempted to start the conversation again.

"Neville, I'm really sorr-"

Neville held up his hand to stop her and Astoria went quiet, feeling almost like one of his students.

"I think that this has all been a huge misunderstanding," Neville told the two of them.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Draco suddenly muttered, before Astoria silenced him with a glare.

"I have to admit," Neville continued, looking like he was trying not to grin, "at first, we all thought that Scorpius disliked the Potters and the Weasleys. It always looked like they were arguing when they had classes together. And I was the one who caught Albus and Scorpius that day in the courtyard. I was convinced that they were about start some sort of duel, especially after I saw Scorpius run up to Albus that morning at breakfast with a snarl on his face as he aggressively shouted something about taking revenge later that afternoon. It was slightly alarming; Scorpius always looks so calm in his Herbology classes…"

Astoria took a deep breath and waited apprehensively for him to continue, deciding that it might be a good idea at some point to have a word with her father-in-law about appropriate gestures and facial expressions to make in front of his grandson. Scorpius occasionally tried to imitate his grandfather's mannerisms and tone of voice, and now it looked like he was trying to imitate him at school whenever he got angry.

"It wasn't very nice, seeing them like that in the Great Hall," Neville muttered as Hannah returned to the table and placed two glasses of Butterbeer in front of them. For some reason, she looked over again in the direction of the door that led out into Diagon Alley, but then as soon as the sound of the door closing echoed around the pub, she focused her attention on Draco and Astoria.

"Honestly," Neville continued, "it was like some sort of terrifying flashback to my own first year..."

Astoria noticed that as he said the last part of that sentence, his eyes flickered almost unconsciously in Draco's direction, who seemed to be deliberately trying to avoid his gaze. She resisted the urge to sigh in exasperation. _Of course_ Draco had challenged Harry Potter to a duel in first year; it was obvious just by the expression on Neville Longbottom's face. Neville had probably been right in the middle of it, desperately trying to stop them. And then he had caught Scorpius doing exactly the same thing years later.

She half-expected Neville and Hannah to start glaring at the two of them or to shout accusations about the past over at Draco, but to her surprise they both kept the same expressions on their faces, looking half sympathetic and half amused. Astoria finally decided that after everything Neville had been through, he probably wouldn't be fazed anymore by arguments that had happened when he was only eleven years old.

"However, as much as it might surprise you…"

This time Neville paused and stared intently at the two of them, as though he was unsure about the best way to continue or how they were going to react.

"Scorpius is friends with Albus Potter and Rose Weasley."

Draco had been about to take a sip of his drink, but instead he sat there frozen with his glass halfway to his mouth and his eyes wide.

"They're friends?" Astoria asked slowly, not daring to believe what he had just said in case she had misheard or she had simply imagined the last word of the sentence out of pure desperation to hear the word 'friend' instead of 'enemy'.

Neville nodded slowly. "Albus and Scorpius are always inventing games to play around Hogwarts, most of which I have to ban, unfortunately, as every game seems to break at least ten school rules, including their recreations of duels...But at least they're using their imagination and working together, I suppose."

Astoria chanced another glance over at Draco, who was looking slightly less wide-eyed but definitely still shocked. She heard him whisper something that sounded a lot like, "_Of __all the people to recreate a duel with…" _but then Neville was talking to them again.

"And it's becoming very hard to impose any sort of discipline on Scorpius, because Rose Weasley always leaps in front of him to try to defend him whenever one of the professors gets annoyed with him. Although they _do_ seem to be a good influence on each other when it comes to schoolwork-they're always in the library helping each other out with essays, even though they can get a bit too competitive in class, which has led to a few explosions, especially in Charms."

_Don't start crying_. _Don't start crying_, Astoria silently told herself, reasoning that after Neville had looked so shocked when she ran up to his table, his expression would probably be even more fearful if she suddenly burst into tears for no apparent reason.

The whole thing suddenly seemed to make sense; the explosion in Charms class, the 'duel' in the courtyard…But at the same time, it just seemed too good to be true, the idea that Scorpius had a friend to join in with all of the imaginative games that he loved to invent, and another friend who seemed to share his appreciation of books and studying.

And not only did they seem to enjoy studying and playing games with him, but it also looked like they were trying to protect him whenever he got into trouble. It was ironic really, when it had seemed at first like they were the ones who Scorpius needed to be protected _from_.

Hannah must have picked up on something in her expression, because Astoria noticed that she leaned forward slightly in her seat, almost as though she was going to place a comforting hand on her arm.

Astoria tried to smile back at her, feeling surprised but also grateful that Neville and Hannah were being so polite to them. From what she had heard about the two of them, they had both suffered before and during the years of the war, and they had both lost close friends and family. Yet there was no hint of bitterness in their voices.

"Neville thought that you already knew," Hannah told her gently. "He told me that he saw Scorpius in the library the other day with Rose, writing a letter to you to explain what had really happened-"

"He must have forgotten to send it," Neville interrupted her. "He can be quite forgetful at times. Maybe you should buy him a Remembrall," he muttered, a definite twinkle of amusement in his eyes as he looked discreetly over in Draco's direction again. Even Hannah looked slightly amused by the apparent hidden joke.

Astoria looked at the three of them, wondering whether they would attempt to explain the story behind the comment. It was often assumed that both she and Scorpius knew every single detail about Draco's time at Hogwarts, and it was not unknown for people to make some sort of comment about his school years and then throw a knowing look in Astoria and Scorpius's direction, believing that they already knew exactly what they were talking about, even though this wasn't always the case.

In the end, Hannah gave her the it's-probably-better-not-to-ask look that Astoria was more used to sharing with Theodore Nott's wife.

"I don't think so, Longbottom," Draco muttered back at him, looking anything but amused.

Astoria briefly considered throwing another glare at him, but she decided against it. Unlike a lot of the other witches and wizards who they encountered in Diagon Alley, Neville didn't appear to be particularly insulted or intimidated by Draco's comments. If anything, he looked like he was trying not to laugh.

"Brilliant student though," he continued after a few seconds' pause. "Very intelligent."

Astoria couldn't stop herself from beaming with pride as Neville praised her son. It was so rare to hear praise from anyone about members of her family, and she suddenly felt extremely relieved that Scorpius was working hard at school and impressing the teachers rather than going out of his way to cause trouble.

"You should have seen them all in the Entrance Hall just before I left Hogwarts yesterday," Neville told them with a grin. "They were trying to stage some sort of apology scene between the three of them, no doubt trying to convince the professors that they don't have a problem with each other. It was hilarious, they were all shaking hands and promising to try to put their differences aside…"

Astoria noticed that Draco shifted uncomfortably in his seat as Neville finished his story. She looked over at him. There was definitely something different about the expression on his face, and the sneer from a few minutes ago had suddenly disappeared.

She wondered why a story about Scorpius acting out an apology scene (and probably laughing the whole time) would make him so uncomfortable. Unless he was thinking about the adults…

Neville stopped laughing and looked questioningly at the two of them. Astoria tried her best to smile and Draco seemed to be doing his best to get the indifferent expression back on to his face.

She couldn't help thinking about what would happen though, if the three children really were as close as their Herbology professor made out. She was certain that Draco wouldn't have a problem with Albus and Rose, as long as they got along with Scorpius. He was always saying that he would like for Scorpius to have more friends and to spend more time with children his own age rather than their adult friends.

The problem would be with Albus and Rose's parents. Astoria had been well aware of the rivalry when she was at school, and for every moment that she hadn't seen, she had heard many, _many_, stories years later.

"Although, to be honest, I'm not exactly thrilled with them all at the moment," Neville jumped in, interrupting Astoria's thoughts. "Last Friday, they were all brewing a potion in the dormitory, with a little help from one of the Gryffindor students, and it led to yet another explosion. They know very well that it's against school rules, as I told them angrily the next morning. I was considering putting them all in detention, but Professor Slughorn wouldn't hear of it."

"Why not?" Astoria asked, trying to decide whether she should feel annoyed that Theodore's story about Scorpius and the exploding potion had turned out to be true or surprised at the idea that the Gryffindors and the Slytherins finally seemed to be working together.

"You know what Horace Slughorn's like with certain Slytherin students," Neville responded with a wry grin.

The three of them nodded slowly.

Astoria looked around the table and thought for the first time about how strange the situation was, all of them sitting there and talking about their former teacher. To anybody walking past the table, it might even look like they were a group of old friends, reminiscing about their school days.

"How old is he now, anyway?" Hannah asked her husband. "He was already getting on a bit when we were at school-"

"I've never really thought about it," Neville answered her, "but he must be nearly a hundred now…"

As Hannah grinned at Neville, Astoria secretly wondered what would have happened if she had made more of an effort to talk to them and to other Gryffindor and Hufflepuff students during her school years, instead of taking the safer option and surrounding herself with students from her own House with a similar family background.

"What else do Albus, Rose and Scorpius do together?" she asked, surprising herself by her eagerness to hear about Scorpius's moments with his new friends. She had always felt somewhat isolated during her own school days, and she had often felt that despite appearances, she had never really fit in with the other Slytherin students in her year at Hogwarts.

She had even felt a sense of distance from her own sister during their teenage years, as Daphne always seemed to prefer to run around after Pansy Parkinson rather than spending time with her. She had never wanted that life for Scorpius; she had never wanted him to feel that sense of isolation as he got older.

Now (hopefully) that wasn't going to be the case. And, she decided, 'Albus, Rose and Scorpius' definitely had a nice ring to it. She said the names a few times in her head, imagining certain scenarios in which the children were all happily spending time together.

_Albus, Rose and Scorpius are just playing Quidditch in the garden. Rose and Scorpius are studying together in the drawing-room. Don't mind Albus and Scorpius, they're just having a fake duel in the kitchen…_

But then all of a sudden she realised that in those situations, it sounded a lot like the three of them were at her house during the holidays and she was the one doing the talking. She abruptly stopped that train of thought, trying not to get too carried away. After all, she still had no idea how the Potters and the Weasleys were going to react to this friendship. For all she knew, they could be absolutely furious. Albus and Rose might not even be allowed to spend time with Scorpius outside of school.

"Well," Neville finally responded after thinking about it for a moment, "sometimes, when I look out of the office window, I can see them all playing a 'secret' game of Quidditch with Albus and Rose's cousins. Which again is technically against the rules, but they're all so good at flying that I don't have the heart to go out there and tell them to stop. And I'm sure that Dominique and Victoire Weasley always keep an eye on them."

Astoria thought about the times, when Scorpius was very young, that she had stood out in the garden at her parents' house, with Draco and Scorpius sitting in the background. Her parents didn't live far from Molly and Arthur Weasley, and there had been so many times when she had seen all of the Potter and the Weasley children in the distance, flying around on broomsticks as they played a game of Quidditch. She could almost hear the laughter and the joking arguments as they all played together. Then she would turn around and Scorpius would be sitting there at the other end of her parents' garden.

"Scorpius is _bored,_ Draco," she would always whisper pointedly to him whenever this happened.

It hadn't taken long for him to get the hint. One day, his eyes had flickered from Scorpius to the flashes of red and black hair in the distance and he had sighed heavily.

"I can't," he had eventually told her, sounding more disappointed in himself than angry.

After that, she had decided not to push the issue any further.

"Why don't you take Scorpius round to the Weasleys' yourself then, if you're so desperate for him to play a game of Quidditch with them?" Daphne had always asked her.

But for Astoria, that wasn't the point. Because if she was really honest, the whole Quidditch situation wasn't just about Scorpius. She had always secretly hoped that if Draco had suddenly appeared outside their front door with Scorpius one afternoon, they might have asked him in for a drink to be polite, and then maybe they could have started some sort of conversation to break the ice.

As Neville continued to talk about Hogwarts and Quidditch matches, Astoria wondered whether this vague plan would ever really be a possibility, especially now that the three children were friends.

She wasn't expecting the adults to suddenly become good friends, she knew that there was too much bitterness about the past for any sort of close friendship to happen in the near future, and after hearing so many negative stories about the former Gryffindors, Astoria herself wasn't sure that she was ready to fully invite them into their lives, but she also knew that she would feel a lot better if they could get to a point where they could all walk past each other in Diagon Alley and say hello without looking at each other uncomfortably or turning away. Or if they could all go to Platform 9 ¾ to collect their children and stand there and have a polite conversation without any insults being thrown around.

Then, maybe one day, they would be able to sit down for drinks and talk to each other about their children and their families without having to worry about arguments or awkward silences.

The conversation with the Longbottoms was interrupted by the approach of a younger man, who stopped next to their table and held out a piece of parchment and a quill to Neville as he asked nervously for his autograph.

"_Don't. Say. Anything,_" she mouthed silently to Draco as he rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to make what was undoubtedly a sarcastic comment.

"I'm sure that Scorpius will do really well for Slytherin House," Hannah told Draco, forcing him to look away from Neville.

As Draco turned away from her to talk to Hannah, Astoria watched the scene with fascination. She vaguely remembered Neville Longbottom during his school years, when he had always looked so shy and awkward, tripping over as he walked into the Great Hall and constantly being bullied by the Slytherins.

And now here he was, two decades later, one of the heroes of Gryffindor House, a professor at Hogwarts, his name in books and on Chocolate Frog Cards, interrupting their conversation so that he could sign an autograph for one of his fans.

It was interesting, how people could change.

"Sorry about that," he mumbled as soon as the man left the table. "Anyway, as I was saying, not only do they play games of Quidditch together but they also seem to enjoy games like Wizard's Chess. Scorpius seems to be trying to help Albus to improve so that he can beat his brother. I'm not sure that's a good idea though-Albus's older brother is quite competitive when it comes to games like Wizard's Chess, I've seen a few arguments break out between the two of them over at the Potters'…"

"_If yet another argument breaks out over a game of Wizard's Chess…"_

So _that's _what that strange conversation in Madam Malkin's had been about. It seemed so obvious now, now that she knew the whole story. And Harry Potter's wife had smiled at her as she said it. She was probably trying to be nice to her, or she was trying to make a joke out of the whole thing to ease some of the tension. So maybe that meant that she already knew about the friendship, and maybe she didn't mind, maybe she wasn't going to tell her son to stay away from Scorpius…

And the whole time Astoria had stared at her in shock, refusing to respond and probably throwing a glare at her as she backed out of the shop. How _embarrassing_. Part of her wanted to get up out of her seat and run out of the Leaky Cauldron so that she could try to find her and explain.

She imagined what she would say if she really did see her outside one of the shops. _Just give us a chance!_ she would shout. _We'll try our best, honestly! I'll try not to encourage any arguments between them all! Things are different now!_

But then, if the Potters already knew about what was going on, then maybe by not saying anything in protest, they were already giving them a chance. Maybe they had already silently given their approval. Astoria hoped more than anything that this was the case. Maybe she was biased because she was his mother, but she was certain that no other child would ever appreciate Albus and Rose's friendship as much as Scorpius would.

"And last night, they all went to a Deathday Party with James Potter. They think that we professors don't know about these things, but they forget that we were students once too." Neville laughed as he spoke; apparently unaware of the fact that Draco had visibly tensed at the mention of the Deathday Party. Astoria on the other hand was all too aware of it.

"Scorpius must be close to the whole family if he's getting invites to parties from James Potter," Neville continued. "James can be _very _selective about who he allows into his circle of friends."

"Do _all _of the Hogwarts ghosts go to Deathday Parties?" Draco asked him.

"I imagine so," Neville replied, looking shocked that Draco had spoken to him without a hint of irritation or sarcasm in his voice.

Astoria suddenly realised why he looked so tense. She had heard the infamous 'fight in the bathroom story' hundreds of times. Mainly from Pansy Parkinson, but also from Draco himself years after it happened. Astoria had always known that one of the Hogwarts ghosts had been there to witness the scene; she had even heard her screams echoing around Hogwarts that afternoon as she sat by the fireplace in the Slytherin common room. And on the rare occasions when Draco told the story, the name 'Myrtle' always came up at some point.

And Scorpius had been at a Deathday Party, where Myrtle would have recognised him and could even have spoken to him.

As Neville and Hannah got up to go and get more drinks, Astoria turned to Draco.

"She wouldn't have said anything to him," she whispered, trying to reassure herself at the same time.

Draco didn't look convinced.

"Honestly Draco, I'm certain that she wouldn't. He's only eleven years old, and I'm sure that she would have seen how young he is and kept quiet! Anyway, if she _had _said something, Scorpius would already have sent a letter to ask you about it."

Draco looked slightly more relaxed, but for Astoria it was yet another uncomfortable reminder that this wasn't going to be easy. There were still issues there, things that had never been talked about. Draco had been able to avoid the Potters and the Weasleys for years, but now they would have to talk to each other. They might suddenly be forced to discuss certain issues that had been conveniently ignored for almost two decades. There was every chance that somebody would say the wrong thing and a huge argument would break out.

She was happy about the friendship. Harry Potter's wife seemed to be trying to accept the friendship. Perhaps Hermione Weasley would also accept the friendship. But for the men, it could be a very different story.

Behind the smirks and the sarcastic comments, Astoria knew that Draco was _very_protective of his son. He would argue with his own father over who got to take Scorpius to Platform 9 ¾ or to Diagon Alley. The jealousy could reach a whole new level if Scorpius started to spend time with Harry Potter's family as well.

They would all have to try though. They would have to do their best, for the sake of their children.

"I can't believe he's friends with them," Draco whispered to her. Astoria took a deep breath and waited for him to continue, hoping that he wasn't about to voice his disapproval. "And that means that there are _three_of them!"

"Yes…" Astoria responded slowly, unsure about where he was going with that particular comment. "I worked that out a while ago. The names 'Albus, Rose and Scorpius' sort of give it away that there are three of them in the group-"

"What I mean is, everybody's going to start comparing them to _them_!"

Astoria didn't need any clarification as to who he was talking about. She had long since learnt that the mention of the word 'them' (usually followed by some sort of pained expression) nearly always meant that he was talking about Harry Potter and his two best friends.

"Scorpius is happy, Draco," Astoria whispered back to him, hoping that the statement would be enough, at least for now. "And it's not as though they're all in Gryffindor. As Hannah said, Albus and Scorpius could both do really well for Slytherin House."

Draco smirked at that final comment before he responded, "Well, I suppose if everything goes okay, I can tell everybody that I didn't exactly discourage the friendship-"

"Don't you dare take all the credit for the friendship, Draco!" Astoria warned him, thinking of all the times that she had 'discreetly' mentioned the fact that Albus Potter and Rose Weasley would be in Scorpius's year at school and dropped 'subtle' hints that it might be nice if they all tried to get along at Hogwarts.

She could already see exactly what was going to happen though: either the whole thing would go disastrously wrong and Draco would find some way of blaming Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, or everything would go really well and Draco would take all the credit and walk around smugly telling everybody that the friendship had been his brilliant idea in the first place.

"What's going to happen when we see them all on Platform 9 ¾ in December?" he asked her with a hint of panic in his voice.

"Then you'll have to be polite," Astoria told him.

"As long as they're polite to me," he replied. "And if Weasley starts _anything-"_

"He won't," Astoria quickly interrupted him, trying her best to discourage any insulting comments about Ronald Weasley when two of his friends were within earshot.

"Is everything okay?" Neville asked the two of them, the twinkle of amusement still in his eyes as he returned to the table with Hannah.

"Everything's fine," they both told him.

"Are you happy about the friendship?" Hannah asked Draco uncertainly, and Astoria couldn't help feeling surprised that she had asked him so directly.

"I'm happy that Scorpius is happy," he offered as an indirect response to the question.

Astoria had just breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't made some sort of sarcastic or insulting comment about the Potters or the Weasleys when he started speaking again.

"Honestly though, if he starts walking around wearing a Weasley jump-"

"Draco!" Astoria interrupted him before she put her head in hands in exasperation.

"What?" he asked her in a tone of disbelief, as though he was completely unaware that he had said anything wrong.

"It's not _funny_!" she snapped at him from behind her hands.

"It wasn't _supposed _to be funny," he responded. "I was making a _very_ serious comment about Scorpius's possible future choice of outfit..."

_The Longbottoms are close friends of the Weasley family! _she desperately wanted to shout at him. _You can't just make insulting comments right in front of them! You're not sitting with Gregory and Theodore anymore!_

Neville didn't appear to be offended though. In fact, Astoria had a strange feeling that he and Hannah would burst out laughing the second the two of them left the table.

However, she found that she didn't really care too much that he seemed to be so amused. Instead, she was appreciative of the fact that he had invited them to sit at his table, he had reassured her about Scorpius, he had told her about his new friends, and not once had he suggested that Scorpius didn't deserve the friendship or that they as a family somehow weren't good enough.

And if Draco was already making sarcastic jokes about the Weasleys then at least it meant that he wasn't really annoyed about this strange situation that they had suddenly found themselves in.

It wouldn't be easy. She was well aware of that. She was also well aware of the fact that a member of the Malfoy family probably wouldn't be the Potters' or the Weasleys' first choice of friend for their children. But as she looked around the small table, she felt a faint glimmer of hope that she hadn't really felt since that first day on Platform 9 ¾ back in September.

There they all were, a Gryffindor, a Hufflepuff and two Slytherins, sitting at a table together and having a civil conversation that didn't involve arguments or accusations. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

"I should warn you," Neville told her, "from what I've seen of them all at Hogwarts, you should be prepared for a lot of noise, a lot of chaos and a lot of explosions."

Astoria smiled at him. She knew that it was only a joke. And on the one hand she didn't mind too much about the prospect of an increase in the level of noise and chaos. Everything had been too quiet for the past few years; Scorpius's life had been too quiet. Things were definitely about to get interesting.

But on the other hand, maybe Neville was trying to give her a genuine warning behind the joking tone and the smile.

The whole situation between the parents could easily descend into chaos. There would definitely be awkward moments and tense conversations. She might even have to have a few conversations with Scorpius that she had been hoping to put off for several more years.

Yet in spite of all of this, Astoria couldn't help feeling happy in the knowledge that Scorpius had Albus and Rose as his friends rather than his enemies. Even though the adults might not have wanted it, maybe the whole thing had needed to happen-a Potter in Slytherin, a friendship between a Potter, a Weasley and a Malfoy.

Maybe it wasn't just about Scorpius. Maybe it wasn't just about the children.

Maybe now they could all help each other.


	11. In Pictures

"Ron, is everything okay?" Hermione asked conversationally as she opened the kitchen door.

She doubted that it was anything serious. After all, it wasn't unusual for her husband to call out to her from various rooms of the house so that he could share some sort of news or story about his day.

On a good day, it could be a story about something hilarious that had happened at work, or a joke that Harry or George had told, or news about Rose's time at Hogwarts.

On a bad day, it tended to be an announcement that he would have to work extra hours before the holidays, or that he had read yet another article in the _Daily Prophet _about Lucius Malfoy.

As she walked slowly into the room, Hermione carefully studied the expressions on the three men's faces, wondering whether she would be expected to look amused or sympathetic.

Ron was sitting at the kitchen table, holding what appeared to be a pile of photographs in his hand. His expression was unreadable, but Hermione was sure that his ears had gone slightly red.

She looked from Ron to the piece of parchment on the kitchen table and then over at George and Lee, who had moved to the other side of the room and seemed to have been in the process of pointing their wands at the kettle to make a cup of tea, but had instead stopped to stare at Ron with confused expressions on their faces.

On the other hand, Hermione suddenly thought at she took in the scene in front of her, Harry was still away on Auror duty, her daughter and several of her nieces and nephews were still away at Hogwarts. Maybe something serious really _had_happened…

"_Ron_?" Hermione prompted, trying not to sound too anxious, even though her heart had already started to beat faster as various possibilities ran through her mind. "Everything's okay, isn't it?"

"Yeah, everything's fine, nothing to worry about!" Ron replied hurriedly, apparently sensing the tone of panic in her voice. "It's just…have a look at this." He held a photograph out to Hermione and she reached over to take it from him.

George and Lee edged forward so that they could look at the picture from over Hermione's shoulder. They had barely glanced at it when George muttered something about going to play a game with Hugo and Lily and quickly left the room, with Lee falling into step behind him.

George had an uncanny ability to sense the exact moments when certain people or incidents from the past were about to be discussed, and he always made his excuses and disappeared whenever this happened, just in case anybody mentioned the events of the Battle of Hogwarts in conversation.

As the noises of what sounded like a game of Exploding Snap started to ring out from the living room, Hermione examined the picture carefully.

She knew that Rose had probably sent it, because her daughter was standing in the middle of the photograph, with Albus standing on her left and another boy with fair hair who Hermione instantly recognised standing on her right.

They were surrounded by various other students, all of them laughing as though something hilarious had just happened. Every few seconds, Rose would look over at Albus and grin, and then she would smile over at the other boy, so that it seemed like the three of them were sharing some sort of private joke.

A huge banner bearing the Slytherin crest was displayed on the wall behind them, and they all appeared to be covered in what looked like the liquid remains of a potion.

Ron was looking at Hermione, waiting for some sort of comment. She had worked out the reason behind Ron's anxiety in a matter of seconds, but at the same time she wondered if she would be able to say something to distract him.

"I really hope that they haven't been brewing potions in the dormitory," she muttered disapprovingly. "They _must _know that it's against the school rules -"

"_That's _what you're thinking about right now?" Ron asked her in a tone of utter disbelief.

"Rose looks very happy though," Hermione continued, trying a different tactic, "and Albus as well."

"Who else is in the picture?" Ron asked her, a hint of doubt creeping into his voice as though he was starting to wonder whether he had imagined the presence of the other boy standing next to their daughter.

"Well, there's another girl from Ravenclaw sitting in the background, she must be Rose's friend Kate. She's mentioned her a few times in her letters, remember? And a few other students from Slytherin House, I think that one of the boys is called Mark, and the girl with dark hair is called Ursula…and then there's Scorpius Malfoy..."

Hermione said the last part of the sentence in as quiet a tone of voice as possible, but it didn't stop Ron from flinching slightly at the mention of that particular surname.

"It looks a bit cosy, doesn't it?" asked Ron, his voice now sounding slightly high-pitched.

"It's only a picture," Hermione told him, hoping that she sounded calm and reassuring.

"It's the same in every single picture!" he exclaimed after a few seconds of silence.

"That's not exactly true, Ron," Hermione responded with a slow shake of her head as she picked up the rest of the photographs from the kitchen table and started to look at them.

There was a picture of Rose with Victoire and Dominique, the three of them sitting next to each other on one of the sofas in the Gryffindor common room. Then there were several photographs of Rose in the Ravenclaw common room, standing next to a few of the girls who were wearing matching blue ties.

There was also a picture of Rose with James, Fred and Erica, the four of them huddled together outside in the Hogwarts grounds with Hagrid walking around in the background, his head almost cut out of the picture due to his height.

But after that there was a photograph of Rose and Scorpius in the school library, the two of them seemingly oblivious to the flash of the camera as they concentrated on turning the pages of a huge book.

Towards the end of the pile, there was a picture of Albus, Rose and Scorpius, all three of them with a broomstick in hand as their eyes flickered upwards towards the sky, as though they were planning their next game of Quidditch.

Underneath that one there was a picture of the three of them sitting at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall, three pairs of eyes staring avidly at a chessboard, with their heads occasionally turning away from the game so that they could whisper to each other.

Ron was right, it all looked rather cosy. But then, was it really that surprising?

"But…Ron, surely you must have known that they were friends?" Hermione asked him carefully, thinking of all the times that Rose, Albus and even Dominique and Victoire had mentioned Scorpius's name in their letters.

"Well, yeah, I suppose," he replied hesitantly. "I had a feeling that they were getting along okay in class. But…I don't know, 'Mione, it was different when 'Scorpius' was just one of the many names that Rosie mentioned in her letters. Now it's like…it's like…"

He waved his hand around for a few seconds, trying to think of a way to finish the sentence, but in the end he simply shrugged and went silent.

Hermione already knew more or less what he was trying to say. As she looked from Ron to one of the photographs of Albus, Rose and Scorpius, she could almost hear his unspoken conclusion of, 'It's like you, me and Harry.'

Hermione had had exactly the same thought only a few days beforehand, when she met up with Ginny at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. Ginny had eventually brought up the subject of Scorpius Malfoy as she started to tell Hermione about a letter that she had just received from Albus.

"Well, I think that they're friends, Ginny," Hermione had finally concluded after Ginny had talked for several minutes about Scorpius's plan to help Albus to improve at Wizard's Chess and about how the three of them went to Hagrid's together every Friday afternoon.

"Er…yeah, that's what I thought too," Ginny had replied with an almost sarcastic smile.

It might have seemed like an obvious response, but Hermione had meant it as more than a statement affirming that there was no animosity between the three children. Because judging by what Ginny had said about Albus's comments in the letter, her nephew talked about Rose and Scorpius in almost exactly the same way that Hermione had talked about Ron and Harry when she went home for Christmas after her first term at Hogwarts.

Hermione was snapped out of her thoughts when Ron started to talk again.

"What do you think we should do, now that-"

"Dad, come and look at this!"

His words were interrupted by Hugo, who was shouting eagerly from the living room.

"I'll wait in here," Hermione told him as he headed into the living room to see what Hugo was up to.

While she waited for him to return, Hermione sat down in one of the kitchen chairs. She briefly glanced at what was definitely her daughter's neat handwriting on the now torn envelope before she picked up a discarded photograph from the table.

It was a picture of Albus and Scorpius, sitting next to each other in two of the armchairs in a darkened Slytherin common room, the reflection of the flames from the fire dancing across their faces.

Hermione almost gasped at how much the two boys resembled their fathers. She had never really thought about the resemblance before, because in person Albus had always seemed so different to Harry in personality and mannerisms, but in pictures, the resemblance was a lot more obvious.

The only tell-tale signs that they were in fact different people were the occasional smile from Scorpius which looked completely genuine and a few nervous (rather than annoyed) glances from Albus in the direction of the camera as he ran his hand uncomfortably through his hair, looking slightly embarrassed at being one of the main focuses of attention.

But still, looking at the picture of the two boys in their Slytherin robes was like seeing a strange vision of what life could have been like for Harry if things had worked out differently on his first day at Hogwarts.

Hermione wondered if this was the first picture that Ron had laid eyes on when he opened the envelope. It would definitely explain his startled reaction.

"What if they start walking around wearing Slytherin scarves and boasting about their pure-blood relatives?" Hermione heard an anxious voice ask her from the doorway.

She shifted around slightly in her seat as Ron walked back into the room. In any other circumstances, she might have laughed at such a strange suggestion, but her husband looked so convinced that this imagined scenario was a genuine possibility that she couldn't bring herself to even smile or roll her eyes.

"Honestly, Ronald," she sighed, "have you ever even heard Rose mention the word 'pure-blood' in a sentence?"

"Alright, I suppose not," Ron finally answered after thinking about it for a few seconds. "But you know what I mean…"

It was true; Hermione knew exactly what he was trying to say. Not only was Ron extremely protective of his daughter, but he had also always been determined that the children would never develop any sort of prejudice against the Muggle world.

Ginny was exactly the same, and even though it was a world that they didn't always understand, she and her brother had always encouraged the children to read Muggle books and play Muggle games and spend time with Hermione's parents and Harry's Muggle cousin.

She knew that the very last thing that Ron (and the rest of the Weasley family) would want would be for Albus or Rose to be influenced in any way by the ideas of the older members of the Malfoy family.

Yet from what she had heard, there was no evidence to suggest that Scorpius was anything like his father had been when he was younger...

"Scorpius helped Rose with her Herbology essay, Ron," Hermione heard herself saying as she tried to remember the exact details of Albus's letter to Ginny. "And she got full marks. He also helped Albus to study for a History of Magic test, and he told Rose that he thinks that she's a really good Quidditch player-"

"She _is _a good Quidditch player," Ron muttered as he sat back down, looking like he was relenting slightly.

Hermione was almost surprised by how important it suddenly seemed to try to support this friendship. As she talked about Scorpius, she was for some reason reminded of her own first few months at Hogwarts, when she had felt so uncertain and insecure, and she had worried so much about whether or not she would be accepted by the other students.

"But…" Ron continued, "it's not about Scorpius, not really-"

He was cut off by a loud noise coming from the direction of the fireplace in the other room. After a few seconds, Bill walked into the kitchen, closely followed by his son Louis.

Louis waved and grinned at the two of them, but Bill stood there in silence as his eyes flickered uncertainly from one to the other, looking like he was trying to decide if he was interrupting something important.

"Er…" Bill finally said, speaking slowly, "Lee sent an owl earlier; he said something about trying to start a post-Halloween party-"

"A _secret_ post-Halloween party, Bill!" they heard Lee shout out from the living room as Lily and Hugo laughed. Even Ron managed a grin.

Hermione smiled and pretended to shake her head in exasperation. This sort of thing happened all the time, especially now that the Weasley family was so large. They would go around to one house or the other to visit, then a few more people would arrive, then word would get around that some sort of gathering was taking place, more friends and family would arrive, and all of a sudden the visit or the gathering would turn into a party.

"The party's in here, Uncle Bill!" shouted Lily.

"Why don't you both go and join the 'party' in the living room?" Hermione suggested. "We'll be in there in a minute."

As Bill and Louis practically ran out of the kitchen, Hermione turned back to Ron.

"I know-" she started to say, before they were interrupted again by Percy and Lucy's arrival.

Percy nodded politely and placed a few of the heavy books that he had been carrying on the kitchen table. Ignoring the fact that Ron practically had to leap out of his seat to avoid being hit by a few of the larger books, he mumbled something about paying a visit to discuss a Ministry meeting with Hermione.

Hermione nodded at him, even though she had a feeling that his visit probably had more to do with the fact that he had heard that his brothers were already there and he didn't want to be the one to miss out on a family gathering.

"It's not about Scorpius," Ron repeated as soon as Lucy and Percy had joined the others in the living room.

The look of panic crossed his face again. Hermione moved closer to the kitchen table.

"It's about his family, isn't it?" she asked him in barely more than a whisper.

He nodded in agreement, even though the affirmation was unnecessary. His negative reaction to any mention of the Malfoy family wasn't anything new. She already knew exactly what Ron thought about them.

Over the years, the animosity between Harry and Draco Malfoy had faded almost into indifference, and the two of them seemed to have reached some sort of unspoken agreement that it was no longer acceptable to throw insults at each other. Even if Harry_was_ still harbouring any feelings of resentment, they would most likely remain unaware of these feelings as he rarely joined in with any of the conversations about the Malfoys. Ron was also reluctant to get into any arguments about the Battle of Hogwarts and he seemed to be fairly happy to go along with the polite nods and the one-word greetings, but it didn't mean that he was prepared to forget about what had happened.

He was definitely still angry with the family. Hermione knew this because it was something that he had confessed to her during one of their private discussions about the past in the early years after the Battle of Hogwarts.

At first he was angry about everything that the Malfoys had said and done before the war, and he was particularly angry about the things that they had said to her. He was upset about all the trouble that they had brought to their lives, and about all the difficult situations that they had helped to put them in.

Then in the years that followed he was angry about the fact that Draco Malfoy had never openly thanked Harry for saving his life or for saving his parents from imprisonment.

This anger wasn't helped by the fact that after the war, Lucius Malfoy seemed to have thrown his money at every possible charitable cause and then reported the details to the _Daily Prophet_, or that every time they walked past his son in the Leaky Cauldron, he was either holding court in the middle of the pub surrounded by large groups of former Slytherins or he was sitting at a table in the far corner having whispered conversations with Gregory Goyle, the two of them pausing occasionally to look around the room and then smirk at each other as they told one of their many private jokes, the way they used to do at Hogwarts.

"_He hasn't changed one bit_," Ron would always mutter whenever this happened, usually as he sat drinking glasses of Butterbeer with Hermione on the opposite side of the pub.

Even though Hermione had always tried to discourage Ron's angry mutterings about the family, especially when Rose and Hugo were present, she couldn't really blame him too much for his animosity towards them.

She thought back to her time at Hogwarts, back in the days when she had worried that she would never truly be good enough to be there, or that other students might look down on her due to her family background. Draco Malfoy and his gang of Slytherins had always been the ones to play on that insecurity, constantly mocking her and throwing insults at her.

If it hadn't been for her friendship with Ron and Harry and a few of the other students, she might have actually started to believe what they said, and she might have become distant and withdrawn as she let their comments deeply affect her.

But were they really going to let grudges from their school days affect Rose and Albus's friendships in the present?

"Are you suggesting that we tell our daughter not to be friends with Scorpius, because we didn't get along with his father?" Hermione asked him pointedly, hoping that he would get the message.

Ron sighed, but this time the sigh was a defeated one. They both knew that he would never try to break up one of his daughter's friendships.

"Will we have to have long conversations with the Malfoys?" he finally asked her.

"Trust me, Ron, I'm sure that that's the very last thing they'll want," Hermione told him seriously, thinking of all the times that Lucius and Narcissa had briefly looked over in her direction in Diagon Alley before they hurriedly turned away, looking terrified.

"Is anybody home?" they heard somebody call out from the hallway.

Before they could answer, Ginny walked into the room, her face slightly flushed and her hair damp from the rain. Hermione smiled at her in greeting.

"Hi, Ginny," said Ron, trying to sound relaxed.

"Oh, did Rose send you pictures from Hogwarts?" Ginny asked with a grin as her eyes focused on the kitchen table. "Albus and James haven't sent any yet, can I have a look?"

"Yeah," Ron replied as he watched her carefully, waiting for some sort of reaction.

If Ginny was surprised by the images in front of her, she didn't show it. After a year of explosions, detentions, practical jokes and letters from the teachers about her eldest son, Ginny now had the air of a parent who was completely relaxed and prepared for anything.

"That's a nice picture of Albus," Ginny remarked as she held up the picture of Albus and Scorpius in the Slytherin common room. "He looks a bit embarrassed though..."

"That's not a 'nice' picture, Ginny! Ron spluttered, looking at her in shock.

Ginny looked over in Hermione's direction as though to roll her eyes. Hermione gave her one of the usual pointed looks, and Ginny nodded slowly, apparently working out what they had been talking about just by the expression on Hermione's face.

"I ran into Malfoy's wife in Madam Malkin's earlier," Ginny muttered as she sat down and picked up a photograph of Scorpius.

Her voice sounded casual, but Hermione noticed the flicker of discomfort that flashed across her face.

"Let me guess," said Ron, "either she stood there in silence and gave you the usual I'm-really-uncomfortable-in-this-situation-look, or she just settled for walking out of the shop muttering under her-"

"Well, not exactly," Ginny interrupted him as she nervously ran a hand through her hair. "She looked rather terrified actually…"

"Well, you can be a bit scary at times, Gin," Ron told her with a faint smile.

Ginny rolled her eyes at him before she continued, "I didn't even say anything…Well; okay I _did _make some sort of joke about how Harry and I would blame her and her husband if we had to separate Albus and James again after yet another argument over a game of Wizard's Chess, but I only said it to try to lighten the mood and make things less awkward. Obviously, it didn't go down very well…"

Hermione resisted the urge to widen her eyes in shock and remind Ginny that walking up to a member of the Malfoy family and suggesting that Harry would blame them for _anything_ probably wasn't the best course of action to take when trying to make a situation less awkward.

"You should have seen the glare I got from her as she left the shop," Ginny continued. "Reminded me of Malfoy's parents for a second…"

As Ron patted his sister's shoulder sympathetically, Hermione sighed heavily, already thinking about how many more of these awkward exchanges they might have to face in the coming months.

"You know," Ginny finally said, breaking the silence, "I always assumed that he'd married Pansy Parkinson-"

Ron covered his face with his hands in exasperation. Apparently Draco Malfoy's love life was the last thing he wanted to discuss.

"Anyway," Ginny continued after she had rolled her eyes in her brother's direction one more time, "since when are the Malfoys friends with Neville and Hannah?"

"What?" Hermione asked as Ron quickly removed his head from his hands.

"Well, they were sitting at a table with them in the Leaky Cauldron earlier on," Ginny informed them. "I was going to go there for a drink and to talk to Hannah, but when I opened the door I saw them all drinking glasses of Butterbeer together, and I decided that after the incident in Madam Malkin's, it probably wouldn't have been a very good idea."

"B-but Neville and Hannah are _our _friends as well!" Ron shouted out into thin air.

Hermione had a feeling that his shock had very little to do with the idea of having mutual friends and more to do with the fact that her previous reassurance that they would not be put in situations where they had to have long conversations with the Malfoys was now being tested.

However, she chose not to comment on this new piece of information, deciding that it was more likely that Neville and Hannah knew Draco's wife, either through mutual friends or through some sort of work connection, and they had perhaps invited them both for a drink to be polite.

Hermione had also known Astoria Greengrass, if a few brief exchanges at work could really be counted as knowing somebody. She remembered her early days at the Ministry of Magic, when she had attended one of the Christmas parties. She had overheard a conversation between Astoria and her sister Daphne, as the two of them made several loud observations about how the then current designs of dress robes in the Wizarding World seemed to have been heavily influenced by Muggle fashions.

As soon as they had realised that she was listening, they had both widened their eyes in horror, as though they had been saying something awful that would personally offend her, and they had quickly moved away.

Hermione had never really had any problems with Astoria though, if their later dealings at the Ministry were anything to go by. She didn't appear to have an open or an outgoing personality like Ginny or Angelina or Fleur, and from what she had heard, she was definitely proud of her pure-blood background, but at the same time she had never been rude to her, and she had even stopped to say hello a few times when they passed each other in the corridors.

After a while, Astoria had left, perhaps to work for a different department of the Ministry, and with the exception of a very quick conversation two years ago that mostly involved the words 'hello' and 'how are you?', Hermione hadn't really had the chance to speak to her again.

She hadn't really known for sure that Astoria Greengrass was also Astoria Malfoy until she had seen her further down the train platform with her husband back in September.

"It'll all be fine though," Ron was now telling Ginny, sounding a lot more confident that he looked, "because Rose and Albus seem to be getting along with Scorpius, and we'll just be polite and avoid any lengthy conver-"

"Do you think that we should try to speak to them on Platform 9 ¾ in December?" Ginny interrupted him as she looked back over at Hermione.

Ron groaned and muttered something that sounded a lot like, "_It's happening already_."

"Oh, snap out of it, Ron!" Ginny sighed, opting as usual for her more direct approach to dealing with problems. "There's nothing we can do to change the past, so let's just forget about it for now and concentrate on this post-Halloween party that George and Lee have secretly been inviting everybody to!"

Before Ron could respond, Lily and Hugo ran into the room, closely followed by Louis and Lucy, all four of them asking if they could see the pictures from Rose.

A few seconds later, Lee, George, Bill and Percy followed them tentatively into the kitchen, and they were all distracted as Hermione started to open the cupboards to search for Butterbeer and Pumpkin Juice and George and Lee pointed their wands at the kettle again.

"I knew I'd find you all here!" Angelina shouted in mock accusation as she walked through the door a few minutes later with her daughter Roxanne.

George and Lee laughed, and just like that the tension was broken and they all returned to more light-hearted topics of discussion like the results of the latest Quidditch matches and the upcoming Christmas party at The Burrow.

Roxanne hung back uncertainly in the doorway for a few moments, her nervous glances around the room a complete contrast to her brother Fred's typical confident remarks. But as soon as Lily enthusiastically called her over to look at the pictures, she smiled shyly and skipped over to join her cousins at the kitchen table.

Ron stood up to allow her to sit down and he joined Hermione on the other side of the room, still looking perplexed.

Hermione looked around at the members of her family, all of them laughing and joking and chatting enthusiastically. Life had been so difficult for them after the war. All of the adults had had to deal with loss, grief and uncertainty about what the future held. But now they had found happiness again, now they had things to laugh about, things to look forward to. Their children were free to enjoy their childhood and their time at school without having to worry about the threats of wars and dark magic on a daily basis.

Still, she understood the reason why Ron looked so concerned. If this friendship between Albus, Rose and Scorpius was as close as it seemed and it lasted for a long time, then it meant that after years of picking up the pieces after the war, it was possible that they might now have to let people back into their lives who had once insulted them and looked down on them and put them in dangerous situations.

Hermione's memories of the past unexpectedly took over and for a few minutes, she was the shy and uncertain first year Hogwarts student again, the only child with no siblings or cousins to reassure her or to share their knowledge of the Wizarding World with her.

Then, at the end of October, Harry and Ron had finally decided to be her friend, and suddenly everything had made sense. For the first time, she felt like she had found two people who truly understood her, two friends who fully accepted her for who she was. She had found two friends to share the new experience of life in the Wizarding World with, and the three of them had gone on to help each other through the good times and the bad.

And despite the awkward conversation that had just taken place in the kitchen, and in spite of the unresolved issues between the adults and the awkward moments that were sure to follow in the near future, Hermione was comforted by the idea that maybe Scorpius felt just as happy as she had felt back in first year, now that he had Albus and Rose by his side.

She caught Ron's eye, trying her best to share her thoughts with him without speaking. Eventually, he squeezed her hand reassuringly and nodded slowly, silently letting her know that he would try his best.

"If Malfoy starts _anything_..." he muttered.

"For goodness sake, Ron, you're not eleven years old anymore!" Hermione interrupted him with a sigh.

"Maybe not, but…is he?" Ron asked her uncertainly.

Hermione hesitated, not really sure how to respond. For the first time, she really felt as though she didn't know the answer to a question.

After a few seconds of careful thought, she came up with what was probably the most accurate response, given her lack of knowledge on the subject.

"I'm sure that we're about to find out."


	12. In the Stars

"It's not very funny though, is it?" Albus muttered as he looked up at the stars through his telescope, noted the names of several constellations and then turned to his left to look at Scorpius.

He shivered slightly as he spoke. There had been a chill in the air since the start of November, and the dark night at the top of the Astronomy Tower was no exception.

Realising that Scorpius was distracted looking through his own telescope, Albus attempted to stare back up at the sky for a few more seconds before he opened his school bag to try to find his scarf.

One of the Slytherin prefects had told them at breakfast that the Divination teacher had predicted that it would definitely snow in a few days' time, but Albus wasn't really sure that this could be counted as an amazing prediction, because a quick glance across the school grounds at the ice-covered lake would be all that was needed to work out exactly what was going to happen.

They had still had a fun few days, in spite of the cold weather. Last week, Molly had paid a visit to Hogsmeade with the other third years, and she had returned with her pockets full of delicious Honeydukes sweets, which she had shared with Albus, Rose and Scorpius.

At the start of the weekend, they had watched James and Fred's first Quidditch match against Ravenclaw, closely followed by a visit to one of the school bathrooms to speak to Myrtle, who had shrieked in delight at the sight of the three of them.

They hadn't really been able to have a very detailed conversation with her, as she had seemed to be too surprised by their presence in the dark and half-flooded bathroom to be able to think of anything interesting to say, but she had managed to nod along eagerly as they told her about the Quidditch match, and before they left to spend the evening in the Ravenclaw common room, she had made them promise to pay another visit as soon as possible.

Then on Sunday, Albus, Scorpius and a few of the other Slytherin students had gathered around a huge fire filled with salamanders that Hagrid had set up in the grounds close to his home, where they had spent the evening comparing stories about the first two months of term.

"What's not very funny?" Scorpius finally whispered as he wrote the name of another constellation on his own star chart.

Albus opened his mouth to respond, but Professor Sinistra chose that moment to walk slowly past the two of them, her long silver hair glistening in the moonlight. She stopped for a few seconds to examine Albus's star chart and to tell him that he needed to adjust the telescope slightly.

As his professor turned away from him so that she could talk to Scorpius, Albus pulled what he had thought was his green and silver Slytherin scarf out of his bag, but on closer inspection he realised that it was James's red and gold Gryffindor scarf, which he must have forgotten to give back to his brother after the Deathday Party.

He folded it up and put it back in his bag, making a mental note to return it as soon as possible. Even though he was almost certain that James owned at least three other Gryffindor scarves, he didn't want to cause yet another argument with one of his siblings that involved endless accusations over who had or hadn't borrowed something without asking.

"You know, the Fred-hiding-Dominique's-prefect-badge incident?" Albus replied the moment Professor Sinistra moved away from them so that she could help their friend Mark with his star chart. "We were talking about it at the start of this class…"

After Neville had put a stop to their fake duels, Albus and Scorpius had moved on to inventing other games. They had started with attempts at recreating the goblin rebellions that they had studied in History of Magic, but that game had been banned almost as quickly as the fake duels when Neville caught Albus, Scorpius, Ursula and Colin practicing a detailed battle scene by the lake one lunchtime and told them that recreations of rebellions were no better than recreations of duels.

Worried about getting into trouble again, they had started to play one of Rose's more conventional games, which involved the hiding of and complicated searching for objects that they placed in various locations around school, complete with clues and basic maps of Hogwarts that they had tried to sketch on spare pieces of parchment.

One rainy Saturday afternoon, James, Fred, Dominique and a few of their friends had found out what they were up to and had asked if they could join in with the game.

It had all been going so well, right up until the moment when Fred ran out of inspiration for objects to search for and had therefore decided that it might be amusing to hide the badge belonging to Dominique.

Albus was snapped out of his thoughts about the past few weeks when he felt another cold rush of air. He looked at Scorpius again, waiting patiently for him to make the connection between their latest game and the 'mysterious disappearance' of the badge.

Sometimes it could be difficult to get Scorpius's full attention when they were in class. In the Slytherin common room, it was a completely different story, and Albus often sat with Scorpius and Rose in the comfortable armchairs close to the fireplace, where they would talk in detail about anything from the recent news articles in _The Quibbler _to Muggle electrical appliances.

Yesterday evening, the three of them had sat in the common room and shared stories about Albus and Rose's Uncle Charlie and his work with dragons, and Scorpius had told them a few stories about his aunt and her work in different countries over the past few years.

Two days ago, they had been talking about the latest broomstick models in Rose's _Which Broomstick? _magazine, then Albus had shown them a picture of a flying car that his sister and cousin Hugo had sent as part of a letter from his family. Scorpius had looked at it with interest for a few minutes before he commented that he would love to own a flying car one day.

Albus had also sat by the fireplace with Scorpius for a few minutes before breakfast whilst they waited for the other first year Slytherins to get ready, and he was sure that he had been complaining about Fred's constant practical jokes for those few minutes as well.

"Oh, _that_," Scorpius finally responded as he turned away from his telescope and a look of realisation crossed his face. "I wouldn't worry about it too much," he told Albus calmly, "I'm sure that Dominique was fine about it in the end. She seems to think that James and Fred are quite funny-"

"They're not funny at all," Albus mumbled sulkily, still failing to understand the reason why so many of the Hogwarts students seemed to think that his brother and cousin were so hilarious.

"I don't know, Albus," he heard Ursula whisper from a few feet away, "they _can _be funny sometimes."

Albus turned to look at her, hoping that there wasn't an obvious expression of disbelief written all over his face.

"Yeah," Ursula's friend Callie jumped into the conversation with a grin, "the two of them told some really funny jokes at the party in the Gryffindor common room on Saturday evening-"

"You went to the party to celebrate the victory of the Gryffindor Quidditch team?" Albus asked the girls, but then he felt himself blushing slightly as he realised that they might interpret this question and his look of surprise as some sort of accusation.

"_Albus_!" Ursula exclaimed, pretending to look horrified by his comment.

Albus heard another first year Slytherin called Alex laughing from the other side of the Astronomy Tower. He realised that he must have still been shivering, because Alex picked up one of his spare Slytherin scarves and threw it in his direction, smirking at him as if the throwing of the scarf was some sort of hidden joke.

At the start of November, Albus had sent a letter to his Uncle George to tell him about his first few weeks as a Slytherin student, and his uncle had eventually responded with a letter full of joking comments, suggesting that Albus might suddenly become really competitive and try to think of ways to win more points than the Gryffindors, or worse, he might start to invent tactics to help ensure a Slytherin victory on the Quidditch pitch.

Albus had laughed as he read the letter, but then he had quickly replied, reassuring his Uncle George that he would try his best not to get too competitive and that he would also try to discourage the Gryffindor versus Slytherin rivalry.

He wasn't sure that his uncle would be very impressed if he knew that his nephew had widened his eyes in surprise at the news that his fellow Slytherins had attended a Gryffindor victory party.

The truth was that his failure to attend the party to celebrate the fact that James's prediction about Gryffindor flattening Ravenclaw in the Quidditch match had surprisingly come true was more out of loyalty to Rose than any sort of hostility towards the Gryffindor students.

That was the reason why he and Scorpius had spent last Saturday evening with Rose in the Ravenclaw common room, alternating between playing games of Gobstones and listening to several suggestions from the older students on to how to improve their latest Transfiguration homework essays.

As soon as she had finished whispering something to Callie, Ursula discreetly turned around again and winked at Albus, letting him know that she was only joking.

Albus shook his head at his fellow first years and focused his attention on his star chart.

"Scorpius?" he heard Ursula ask. "My parents were asking in their last letter if your aunt will be back in London at Christmas? They said something about a Christmas party in Diagon Alley…"

Albus looked up for a few seconds to stare at the two of them as he tried to work out how Ursula's parents might know a member of Scorpius's family. These connections still surprised him, even though Rose constantly joked about how everybody seemed to know everybody in the Wizarding World.

As Scorpius responded by telling Ursula that he didn't think that his aunt would return to London until April, Albus found himself thinking about the Christmas holidays. His grandmother had already sent a letter to check that he was still happy to receive a green Weasley jumper as a Christmas present, and also to remind him that he could invite a few of his friends from Hogwarts to the party at her house if he wanted.

Even though Scorpius had already mentioned that he was going to stay with his own grandparents for a few days during the second week of the holidays, Albus was still considering the idea of inviting him to the party at The Burrow, and perhaps a few of their other friends as well. He knew that Rose would also want Scorpius to be there, and it would be nice to finally have their own friends from school to invite after a few years of being introduced to all of their older cousins' friends.

"Here," Scorpius whispered to him after a few minutes. He took the quill out of Albus's hand and started to make a few corrections to his star chart.

If it had been his brother or one of his cousins, Albus might have been slightly annoyed about the attempts to correct his work, but when it was Scorpius or Rose, he usually accepted their offers of help. After all, he always returned the favour whenever they were struggling with their Charms or Defence Against the Dark Arts essays.

"My parents were asking about you in their latest letter," Scorpius muttered as he passed the quill back to Albus.

This was another new thing that had started to happen over the past week. Scorpius's parents had apparently mentioned both Albus and Rose's names in a few of their letters, and Albus's parents had asked how both Rose and Scorpius were doing in their most recent letter.

Albus found it slightly strange, but at the same time he hoped that this new situation was a good one, and that the adults no longer thought that he and Scorpius were challenging each other to duels every morning.

"Well, tell them that I said hello," Albus replied with a grin.

"I'm sure that they'll both be at King's Cross in December," Scorpius continued. "I can introduce them to you...if you want?"

For some reason, Scorpius sounded slightly hesitant as he asked the question, but Albus quickly nodded in agreement. He was curious about what it would be like to meet parents from other families, mainly due to the fact that most of his friends' parents were either members of his family or close friends of the family who he had known since he was a baby.

"Okay," said Scorpius, sounding more relaxed. "I have a feeling that Mum knows about the exploding potion incident though, so you might have to help me to invent an explanation as to how the whole thing was in no way my fault..."

Albus laughed then responded, "You'll probably think of an explanation on your own-I'm amazed that we ever actually get into trouble, with some of the excuses that you and Rosie think up..."

Scorpius grinned as though Albus had paid him a compliment. Albus found it funny that Scorpius could sometimes be like Myrtle in the way that they both seemed to be flattered by comments that other people might interpret as jokes or insults.

Albus looked through his telescope again as he thought about the prospect of being introduced to Scorpius's family, and he was reminded of the images that he had seen on the night of the Sorting Ceremony. Every now and again, he would replay the memory in his mind and he would wonder if he had seen genuine visions of the future. If it was even possible to have visions of the future.

They had discussed the idea with Molly one evening at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, after she had complained loudly about a long Divination essay she had to write. The discussion hadn't really been very useful, because Molly had seemed to be fairly convinced that it was almost impossible to make true predictions, Rose had been a lot more optimistic about the idea and Albus and Scorpius had simply shrugged and said that they weren't sure.

Lately, Albus had also started to think about the words of the Sorting Hat during those moments in the darkness, mainly its prediction that he could help Slytherin House in some way. This prediction had confused him at the time, and now that he had more time to think about it, it made him feel a little nervous, partly because he didn't really understand it, but mostly because he knew that he wouldn't like it if people started to put pressure on him to do something really important in the next few months or if they suddenly wanted him to give speeches or win hundreds of house points at a time.

One of the things that Albus liked about being in Slytherin House was that the other students never told him that they expected him to do anything. They usually congratulated him when he won the occasional point for them or when he got good marks in tests, and after Ursula had told them all about the exploding potion incident, they had started to ask him the odd question about potion making, but at the same time they seemed to know when he wanted to be left alone, and unlike a lot of the witches and wizards he had encountered in Diagon Alley, they rarely asked questions about the famous members of his family.

For Albus, the Slytherin common room was a quiet and peaceful place where he could escape from the hustle and bustle of the school corridors and relax after a long day of classes, and he really didn't want that to change.

"This definitely doesn't look right…" he heard Scorpius sigh as he turned his chart upside down and then from left to right, as though that would help him to understand it better.

Albus was about to comment that it looked fine to him, but he decided that it probably wouldn't convince Scorpius. Both Scorpius and Rose seemed to be able to find even the smallest mistakes in their work, and most of them were errors that other students (and probably most of the professors) would never notice.

Scorpius started to cross out various words with his quill, but after a few seconds he picked up his wand and pointed it at the piece of parchment, shaking it slightly in his hand when nothing appeared to be happening.

Albus tensed, anticipating some sort of loud bang or explosion. Even Mark muttered, "_If that piece of parchment goes up in flames, Scorpius…_" under his breath, but instead a few of the letters and diagrams started to dance around the page, darting from corner to corner before they moved into what Albus supposed was the correct order.

Eventually, Professor Sinistra announced that the lesson was over and they all started to roll up pieces of parchment and throw books back into their bags. As their professor spoke to a few of the students about the upcoming Astronomy test in December, Albus, Scorpius and Ursula stood there in silence, staring up at the stars. They were quickly joined by Callie, Alex and Mark.

This was something that they all liked to do at the end of their Astronomy lessons, which meant that every week there was always a small group of first year Slytherins standing there looking up at the sky without the aid of their telescopes.

The students from the other three Houses didn't seem to understand their fascination with hanging around at the top of the Astronomy Tower at the end of the lesson, but Albus felt as though there was something peaceful and reassuring about looking up at the view without feeling the need to make conversation or to hurry to the next class.

There was no rush to do things, Albus decided as he imagined the stars in the sky moving around in the same way that they had just danced around the piece of parchment. Soon it would be December and he would travel back to Platform 9 ¾ where he would see his family again and perhaps meet other families as well, and then he would celebrate Christmas at home and at The Burrow.

But before all that they still had a few more weeks left at Hogwarts. There was still plenty of time to speak to friends, visit Hagrid and Myrtle, attend the parties in the common rooms and maybe even take part in a Potter-Weasley snowball fight if it really did start to snow.

"What are you worried about?" Scorpius suddenly asked, breaking the silence.

"Nothing," Albus quickly replied. He wondered what sort of expression had just flashed across his face to make Scorpius believe that he was panicking about something.

"Everything will be fine," Scorpius told him with a relaxed shrug of the shoulders as Ursula nodded along in agreement.

Albus rolled his eyes at the two of them, but in that moment, as he looked from his fellow Slytherin students to the stars in the sky, he really hoped that this was true.


	13. The Front Page

"_Where?"_

"_On the front page of _Witch Weekly_ magazine."_

"_I think a few of the other students were talking about it at breakfast this morning, I'm not sure what it was about though…"_

"_They write about him at least once a month in the _Daily Prophet…"

"_Do you think it was something interesting?"_

"_I'm not sure…Look, his sons are over there."_

"_Where?"_

"_Further down the corridor, by the stairs. We shouldn't talk so loud; they can probably hear us…"_

"_Wonder if they read it?"_

"_I dunno, they probably don't read every single article."_

"_Do you think they look like-"_

"Honestly," Rose sighed, "anyone would think that Albus and James had forgotten how well-known their dad is in the Wizarding World and now have to be reminded at least once a month!"

She rolled her eyes in the direction of a group of older Ravenclaw students who were having a conversation about her Uncle Harry. Sometimes, she would actually start to forget that certain members of her and Albus's family were talked about so much in the Wizarding World, especially when she was at Hogwarts and away from a lot of the adult witches and wizards, but then it would only take one article or a photograph in a magazine to remind her all over again.

It was a cold Thursday afternoon in mid-November, and the last classes of the day had just ended. With the exception of the small group of Ravenclaw students, most of the conversations in the packed corridors seemed to involve enthusiastic predictions about the upcoming Slytherin versus Hufflepuff Quidditch match, which was due to take place on Saturday morning.

Rose looked at Albus and James, who had been separated from her and Scorpius by the large number of students heading in the direction of the Great Hall. The two of them were currently walking ahead of Rose with a few of James's friends, apparently trying their best to ignore any comments about articles in _Witch Weekly _magazine.

As the loud whispers from the group of students started to quieten down, Albus turned around and rolled his eyes at Rose before grinning at both her and Scorpius.

Rose felt a blush creep to her cheeks as she realised that if Albus had just overheard her comment, then the group of Ravenclaw students probably had too. She thought about what she had said and started to worry that she might have sounded overly harsh.

Hesitantly, she slowed down at the top of the staircase that they were about to descend so that she could turn to look at Scorpius to see his reaction.

She had done this a lot over the past few weeks, as she had worked out that the expressions on both Albus and Scorpius's faces were usually enough to let her know if other people were amused or offended by certain things she said.

Scorpius stared back at her with his curious expression that he always wore when he was about to ask a question in class. He then looked from Rose to Albus as though he was deep in thought, and eventually asked, "Does this happen a lot outside Hogwarts?"

Rose lost her balance for a second and had to grab hold of the banister. She looked down and realised that she had just tripped up on a trick step. She still hadn't memorised the exact location of every single one on the many flights of stairs at Hogwarts.

She quickly straightened herself up, and as she placed her hand firmly on the banister, she thought about Scorpius's slightly hesitant question. She wasn't really sure what it was supposed to mean.

It was possible that Scorpius was simply trying to make a joke by asking Rose if she always made loud comments without stopping to think about what she was saying, even outside Hogwarts, to which the answer would definitely be 'yes'.

However, it was also possible that Scorpius was asking if a lot of witches and wizards read articles about members of her family outside Hogwarts and then went on to have loud discussions about them in public.

She knew that the answer to this question would also be 'yes', but at the same time, she felt reluctant to say too much.

Even though Rose hardly ever read stories about famous witches and wizards in magazines and newspapers, and she nearly always ignored the staring of the crowds in Diagon Alley, she imagined that for other children who weren't used to seeing their parents' pictures in books or on Chocolate Frog Cards, the attention might seem slightly odd, and she didn't want to say anything that would put Scorpius off from spending time with her and Albus during the school holidays.

Thankfully, Rose was spared from answering the question when Molly pushed past a few of the third years so that she could catch up to the two of them.

"That's nothing," her cousin told Scorpius with an exaggerated sigh, "wait until you're with us in Diagon Alley one day during the holidays! Where's an Invisibility Cloak when you need one, hey?"

To Rose's relief, Scorpius laughed at the comment.

"Sorry," Molly continued as she pointed to the students walking behind them, "got lost in the crowd."

For a second, it seemed like Scorpius was about to ask Rose another question, but in the end he simply nodded, shrugged and continued a conversation about Quidditch that he and Molly had been having outside the Transfiguration classroom before they were separated by the groups of students and professors leaving the other classrooms.

Rose had a feeling that the enthusiastic discussion would go on for the rest of the evening, the way it always did whenever Scorpius started to talk about Quidditch tactics with Albus in the Slytherin common room.

"Professor Longbottom said that I have to be completely fair and impartial on Saturday…" Rose heard her cousin inform Scorpius.

For the past five days, Molly had talked non-stop about Neville's decision to allow her to give the commentary at the Quidditch match on Saturday.

Molly had been a member of the Gryffindor Quidditch team since the beginning of her second year, and was therefore usually too busy training or playing matches to be able to give commentaries.

However, as the regular commentator had spent the past few days in the hospital wing due to an unfortunate mishap in a fifth year Potions class, the professors had decided to look for a volunteer to take over the role for one match, and Molly had convinced Neville to choose her.

Rose wasn't really sure that this was the best idea her Herbology professor had ever had, as her cousin was not well-known for remaining impartial during Hogwarts Quidditch games, especially if she thought that the other Houses were threatening a Gryffindor victory in any way, but she had decided that it would probably be better not to point this fact out to Neville, especially after Molly had insisted that this might be her only opportunity to act as commentator.

Instead, she had simply smiled and offered her congratulations when Molly told her the news.

"But obviously," Molly continued, "I refuse to sit there in silence if any of the Slytherins try to cheat…no offence, Scorpius," she added hurriedly.

Scorpius didn't appear to be particularly offended by the comment; in fact, his attention seemed to be focused on Fred, who was walking past them with Erica, both of them bragging about one of their latest practical jokes. Yet the second Rose looked over her shoulder, she noticed that a few of the other Slytherins were throwing glares in Molly's direction.

Albus turned around again, but this time he looked at Scorpius with a pained expression and the two of them rolled their eyes at each other. It was the exasperated look that the two of them had started to share when students from the other three Houses insulted Slytherin.

"I hope that Albus is okay," Scorpius whispered to Rose the moment Albus turned away from them to talk to James.

"Why wouldn't he be okay?" Rose asked him, wondering if she had missed something.

"Oh, nothing much," Scorpius told her with a shrug, looking slightly embarrassed as Molly threw a curious glance in Albus's direction. "He just seemed a bit annoyed in our Astronomy class the other day about the badge-stealing incident." He nodded discreetly at Fred.

Rose looked from Scorpius to Fred and asked, "Fred stole a badge?"

She thought back to the most recent time that Albus and Fred had spent time together. She remembered that Albus had looked a bit sulky just over a week ago after they had spent a long afternoon searching for hidden objects around school as part of their latest game, but Rose had assumed that this was because Albus's team had lost.

He had also muttered something in the middle of a game of Gobstones in the Ravenclaw common room about not wanting to play any more games with Fred for a while, but then they had all been distracted by the comments about their Transfiguration essays from a few of the older Ravenclaw students.

"Oh yeah…I remember James saying something about Dominique's prefect badge…" Molly muttered as Scorpius nodded.

"He did give it back to her, didn't he?" Rose asked the two of them uncertainly, as Fred chose that moment to run past them in an attempt to catch up to James.

Molly and Scorpius shrugged.

"Fred!" Rose heard herself bellow at the top of her voice before she could stop herself.

Not only did Fred come to an abrupt halt, but Molly and Scorpius jumped, and a group of Hufflepuffs walking ahead of them actually covered their ears.

"You should have shouted a bit louder, Rosie," Molly told her with a sarcastic grin, "I'm not sure Professor Sinistra heard you at the top of the Astronomy Tower…"

Rose blushed for the second time. Sometimes she forgot just how loud her voice could be, which had already led to a few embarrassing moments in class when she had been trying to shout the answers out as quickly as possible.

Fred sighed and headed back in her direction.

"Hi, Rosie!" he greeted her enthusiastically as he approached. His smile looked a bit too bright, and Rose had a feeling that he was trying his best to appear relaxed. "How are you to-"

"Did you give Dominique's prefect badge back to her?" Rose asked him in a stern tone of voice before he could finish his question.

She noticed that Albus had paused at the bottom of another staircase and was now standing on his tiptoes as he looked back at them with a confused expression on his face, no doubt trying to work out what they were talking about.

Fred sighed again. "He's not still going on about that is h…I mean, I have no idea what you're talking about, what badge?"

Rose glared at him and put her hand on her hip.

"Oh, all right," Fred mumbled, "I'll give it back to Dominique at dinner in a few minutes."

Rose nodded. "Maybe you should apologi-"

"Got to go, Rose!" Fred interrupted her as he caught sight of a few of his friends standing by the stairs. "I'll speak to you later, okay? Bye, Scorpius!"

He ran away from them and pushed past a group of students so that he could descend the final staircase before he reached the Entrance Hall.

Rose glared after him for a few seconds before she looked at Scorpius again.

"I was right to say something, wasn't I?" she asked him hesitantly for what felt like the tenth time in a month.

She wasn't sure why she had started to ask for Scorpius's opinion about her comments so often, but it seemed to have become almost as normal as giving Albus a hug whenever he looked upset.

Scorpius nodded slowly, even though he still looked slightly baffled by her reaction to the news about Fred and the hidden badge.

Rose nodded gratefully at him and grinned at Molly, finally starting to feel relaxed after a long day of attending classes and walking through packed corridors.

"_I've just heard that there's an article about him in the _Daily Prophet _today as well!"_

"_Brilliant, see if you can find a copy of it in the Great Hall!"_

Rose stood still and closed her eyes in exasperation.

"It's probably better to just ignore it," a knowing voice whispered in her ear.

Rose opened her eyes and looked at Scorpius.

Even though Scorpius went on to grin at her and roll his eyes at the Ravenclaw students, Rose couldn't help thinking that there had been something strange about his tone of voice, as well as his look of curiosity when he had first overheard the students talking about her uncle, but in the end she decided that she was too tired and hungry to ask questions about Scorpius's whispered comment.

* * *

><p>"Why are you both hiding up here?"<p>

Rose looked up from her pile of Chocolate Frog Cards as a sandy-haired boy wearing a yellow scarf approached her seat.

"Hi, Colin," said Scorpius.

The Saturday morning Quidditch was well underway, and Rose had been sitting with Scorpius at the top of one of the Quidditch stands for most of the game.

The two of them had discreetly left their front row seats and moved to the back of the stand after an argument between a Slytherin Beater and a Hufflepuff Chaser had gotten slightly out of hand, and a few of the spectators had joined in by offering their own angry comments.

They had tried their best to distract themselves from the shouting by talking loudly as they compared their latest cards.

Every now and again, Albus would turn around in his front row seat and throw almost envious glances in their direction, looking like he would prefer to be sitting at the back with them. Instead, he was sitting amongst a group of older Slytherin students, and before Rose had moved away, they had all been in the middle of a serious discussion about Quidditch tactics.

Rose had noticed that the Slytherins had asked Albus a lot of questions about Quidditch lately, as they had worked out from his conversations with Scorpius that he actually knew quite a lot about teams and tactics and was fairly good at making predictions about the results of a lot of the Hogwarts games.

Even though Albus enjoyed talking about Quidditch matches, Rose had always found discussions about tactics to be a bit boring, and she preferred to play Quidditch rather than watch it, especially when the game that she was watching seemed to consist entirely of loud arguments and accusations of time wasting and cheating.

She always felt grateful when Scorpius decided to join her on the row of empty seats away from the crowd during certain Quidditch games, even if it was only for fifteen minutes, as she knew that like Albus, he too enjoyed talking in detail about points and goals.

"The game was getting too intense, Colin!" Rose answered him with a sigh.

The three of them looked up in time to see the Hufflepuff Seeker pause in her search for the Snitch so that she could join in with a new argument between the Slytherin Chasers and the Huffepuff Keeper. Oliver Wood, who was refereeing, stopped and put his head in his hands in irritation.

"I have no idea why the referee's shouting at the Hufflepuff Seeker!" Rose heard Molly's voice boom out from across the stadium. "That Slytherin Chaser _obviously _started it!"

"_Molly…_" Rose heard Neville mutter warningly.

"See what I mean?" Rose asked as she jerked her head in Molly's direction.

Colin nodded sympathetically as he grabbed hold of the end of his scarf to stop it from blowing around in the wind.

"At least it's not your team playing!" he told Rose with a grin.

Rose grinned back at him. She had always got along well with Colin, and she had met him and his parents a few times before she started at Hogwarts, as his mum and dad always stopped to say hello to her family whenever they saw them in Diagon Alley.

Every time that she had seen Colin's parents, Rose remembered that they had worn bright red robes, and they had often shared stories with her cousins about their memories of their years as Gryffindor students at Hogwarts.

She had also heard much sadder stories from her own parents about another member of Colin's family who had been a Gryffindor as well, but she knew better than to bring up these stories in front of his family in Diagon Alley.

Rose wondered if Colin's parents had been slightly surprised when they first found out that he had been sorted into Hufflepuff.

As she thought about Colin's family, she couldn't help thinking about her own parents. She had spent several weeks in September and October worrying about their possible reaction when they found out that Scorpius was one of her new friends at Hogwarts, especially after some of the comments that her dad had made about his family when she was younger.

In the end, she had given up trying to write detailed letters to explain about the friendship and had simply sent her parents a pile of photographs from her first few weeks at school, hoping that they would see for themselves just how well Scorpius was getting along with her and Albus.

She wasn't sure what she had expected them to say in response, but she had definitely breathed a sigh a relief when they had simply written a letter to say that they were glad that she seemed to be so happy at Hogwarts and had asked if both Albus and Scorpius were okay.

"Hufflepuff have been playing very w-" Scorpius started to say, before he was interrupted by an angry roar from the crowd as the referee announced that he would allow the latest Slytherin goal.

"Oh come on, Oliver, how can you allow that?" Rose heard Molly's voice shout out again. "Did you not _see _how the Chaser elbowed the Keeper out of the w-"

"_Molly!_" Neville snapped at her. "Fair and impartial, remember?"

"_Fine_," Molly sighed. "Slytherin lead by twenty points…"

Rose, Colin and Scorpius looked at each other and laughed.

"Do you want to sit down?" Scorpius asked Colin.

Colin nodded gratefully and took a seat next to Scorpius. He then retrieved a pile of Chocolate Frog Cards from his robes pocket and the three of them sat there in silence comparing cards.

After a few minutes had passed, Colin came across a picture of Rose's mother in his pile of cards. Rose waited for him or Scorpius to make some sort of comment about the picture, but to her relief, neither of them said anything.

She still found it strange when she looked through a pile of Chocolate Frog Cards or turned the pages of a history book and came across a picture of her parents.

"Has either of you ever found an Albus Dumbledore card?" Colin asked them after a few more minutes.

Rose and Scorpius shook their heads.

"I've heard that they're really rare," Rose muttered. "Anyway," she continued as she looked at her cousin in the front row, "I promised Albus that if I ever find one, I'll give it to him."

Albus had always been curious about the wizard he was named after, and Rose knew how much it would mean to him if he had his own Albus Dumbledore card.

Colin and Scorpius followed Rose's line of vision.

"There's something different about Albus today," Scorpius told them quietly as he tilted his head to one side in concentration and stared at the back of Albus's seat.

Rose and Colin continued to look at Albus, but Rose couldn't see anything odd about him, and Colin looked equally confused. Rose waited, expecting Scorpius to have noticed something that she hadn't, but in the end he shook his head and turned his attention back to them.

"What are you doing for Christmas?" Colin asked Rose and Scorpius after they had swapped more Chocolate Frog Cards and listened to a few of Molly's updates about the game.

Rose told him about her plans to spend Christmas with her parents and grandparents, realising as she spoke just how much she was looking forward to seeing her aunts, uncles and younger cousins again.

She went on to tell the two boys that her mum had written something in her most recent letter about a possible visit to see her other grandparents at the start of the holidays.

Scorpius watched her with interest as she talked about her Muggle grandparents, and Rose smiled to herself, wondering if he would have thought up several questions about Muggle Christmas celebrations by the end of the day.

Colin and Scorpius then started to talk enthusiastically about their own plans.

Rose pretended to be concentrating on her pile of Chocolate Frog Cards, but really she listened carefully to the conversation between the two boys, trying her best to work out if they would be free just after Christmas.

She had recently received a letter from her grandmother to ask if she would like a blue Weasley jumper this year to go with her school scarf and tie, and a few minutes after had she read her grandmother's reminder at the end of the letter about the party at The Burrow, Albus had discreetly approached her at the Ravenclaw table to tell her that he had received a similar letter and to ask her what she thought about inviting Scorpius and a few of their other friends.

Rose had nodded along eagerly, encouraged by her parents' response to the photographs, and the two of them had agreed that there were four friends that they would both like to invite.

They had also agreed that it would be a good idea to write back to their grandmother to check that this would definitely be okay, as they knew how busy The Burrow could get when all of their family and friends of the family were there at the same time, and neither of them would be surprised if their cousins had already invited a lot of friends or if James had invited every Gryffindor in his year again.

She had asked Albus to write the letter, as she knew that he would probably be the best at asking politely. She had also told Albus to write the names of their friends, just so that it would be clear exactly who they were planning on inviting.

Now the two of them were waiting for their grandmother to reply.

Rose's thoughts were interrupted when she heard Colin mention something about his dad being appointed as the official photographer for what sounded like a Christmas ball at the Ministry of Magic, and then Scorpius talked about his grandfather and a trip to Diagon Alley. Rose thought that she also heard him say something about Knockturn Alley, but she couldn't be sure as Scorpius and Colin both talked so quickly.

"He deliberately flew in front of that broom just then to block the Seeker!" they heard Molly shout.

Rose, Colin and Scorpius shared a mutual look of confusion. They had long since lost track of the game and the arguments between the two teams.

They lapsed back into silence, looking upwards as a Hufflepuff Chaser scored a goal.

"The scarf."

Rose jumped slightly when Scorpius broke the silence.

"The what?" she asked him, feeling yet again like she had missed something.

On the other hand, Colin seemed to be equally baffled by his comment.

"That's what's different about Albus today," Scorpius informed them, looking like he was trying not to laugh. "I can't believe I didn't notice it before…"

They looked at Albus again, and Rose felt her eyes widening as she noticed the red and gold Gryffindor scarf around her cousin's neck.

For a moment, she wondered if one of the older Slytherin students had changed the colours of the scarf as some sort of practical joke, but then she remembered that Albus had borrowed James's scarf on the night of the Deathday Party.

Knowing Albus, he had probably just forgotten to return it and had accidently put it on instead of his green scarf at the start of the game.

Colin started laughing. "He does sort of suit it though, doesn't he?" he asked them jokingly.

Rose grinned, but Scorpius's eyes widened and he shook his head.

At the beginning of September, Rose had felt slightly uncomfortable at the idea of Albus and Scorpius in the same Hogwarts House, as she had worried that the two of them might spend all of their time in the Slytherin common room, surrounded by fellow Slytherins and talking about their Quidditch team, Potions classes, and Wizard's Chess…and possibly excluding her.

But now, after two months at school, she could see just how much it meant to Scorpius to have a friend like Albus in the same House, and also how happy the two of them were as Slytherin students.

"_Just wait until the Gryffindor versus Slytherin match…_" they heard a sulky voice mutter as the seventh year Slytherin Seeker flew into the air with the Golden Snitch clasped firmly in his hand.

"Miss Weasley!" This time it was not Neville but the headmistress who interrupted Molly's commentary. "This is your final warning…"

Rose rolled her eyes. She was certain that the argument between certain Slytherin and Hufflepuff students would go on for the rest of the weekend, but at the very least, she had a Slytherin and a Hufflepuff sitting beside her to share her exasperation and to remind her that not every student from the other Houses wanted to argue at every single game.

* * *

><p>"Rosie, what are the Ravenclaw boys like?"<p>

Rose looked up from the borrowed Defence Against the Dark Arts book that she and Scorpius were attempting to read as they sat on the uncomfortable floor of Moaning Myrtle's favourite bathroom.

Myrtle was hovering a few feet above them, waiting expectantly for some sort of answer.

Rose simply shrugged, hoping that she didn't look too annoyed by the interruption. She had never really given the matter any thought.

She turned her attention back to the heavy book and noticed that there was yet another picture of her uncle taking up most of the page that Scorpius had just turned to. Rose hurriedly turned to the next chapter.

It was Sunday afternoon, and after spending the past few hours with Hagrid, who hadn't been feeling very well since Friday, Rose had hoped to spend the rest of the day doing something productive, like writing her Defence Against the Dark Arts essay.

Scorpius had also been eager to start his essay, but after a sleepless night in the Slytherin dormitory due to the loud party in the common room to celebrate the Quidditch victory, Albus had told them that he was too tired to do any work.

"_Fine_," Myrtle sighed. "Have you seen many of the ghosts around school this week?"

"Not really," Scorpius responded. "Just Peeves. And that wasn't exactly by choice…"

Rose nodded and rolled her eyes, trying her best not to think about how much work they would have completed by the end of the evening in the usually quiet and peaceful library if Peeves hadn't decided that it would be _hilarious _to upturn a heavy bookcase and make as much noise as possible.

After the librarian had spent at least ten minutes shouting at Peeves, Rose and Scorpius had given up trying to study amongst the chaos and had returned to the Ravenclaw common room to continue their essays with Kate.

However, most of the older Ravenclaw students seemed to have had the same idea, and there simply hadn't been enough space to open their own books on any of the small tables, and Kate had given up and returned to her dormitory.

In the end, they had decided that the quietest place in Hogwarts would probably be Myrtle's bathroom, but after listening to her shouts and shrieks for the past half an hour, they were now having second thoughts.

"_I _haven't seen any of the ghosts either," Myrtle told them with another mournful sigh. "In fact, I don't think _anybody's_ been in this bathroom for a while…"

Rose felt a twinge of guilt at Myrtle's words. The three of them hadn't paid her a visit for at least a week, because they had been so busy with their classes and homework. She smiled sympathetically, silently vowing to return one afternoon with both Albus and Scorpius as soon as their essays were completed.

"Do you get bored of being in here all the time?" Scorpius asked Myrtle with a look of genuine interest.

Rose looked up at the ghost, wondering how she would respond.

She knew that if she had asked the same question, Myrtle would most likely have taken it the wrong way and would probably have got upset or offended.

She had asked Peeves a similar question in the library less than two hours ago when he had been in the process of throwing yet another book up in the air, and he hadn't exactly been kind in his response. Although that might have had something to do with the fact that she had been glaring at him at the same time.

Yet Scorpius seemed to have a way of asking questions and giving his opinions without upsetting other people too much.

"Oh no," Myrtle told him with a smile, not looking at all offended by his question. She took a deep breath as though she was pausing for dramatic effect. "You wouldn't _believe _some of the things I've seen in here!"

All of a sudden, Myrtle gasped and her hand flew to her mouth. She widened her eyes at Rose and Scorpius and backed away from them in mid-air.

Before Rose had a chance to look at Scorpius and shrug, Myrtle turned around, flew through the air and then dived into the nearest toilet.

Rose dropped the book that she was holding. She had just enough time to grab Scorpius's arm and jump up to move out of the way before the water from the toilet splashed all over the floor.

The two of them stood there for a while in confused silence, staring from the wet floor to the toilet cubicle.

"Do you have any idea what that was about?" Rose asked Scorpius.

Scorpius shook his head.

"So much for finishing our essays tonight," Rose continued with a sigh, deciding that as Myrtle had dived head first into the toilet almost every time that they had been in the bathroom, her behaviour probably wasn't anything to really worry about.

"There's always the Slytherin common room," said Scorpius. "It might be quieter in there now…"

Rose nodded and picked up her bag.

As she headed out of the bathroom, she suddenly realised just how much she liked having Scorpius as her friend. Maybe in a way she had known this since September, but she had been so worried about other things that she hadn't really thought about it properly before.

She liked that she had someone to write essays with in the library for hours on end, someone to talk to during the Quidditch games, someone to simply laugh and shrug off her strange comments and questions, someone to tell her honestly if she had been too harsh, someone to look out for Albus when she was in a different class to the Slytherins or in the Ravenclaw common room.

Just before she opened the bathroom door, Rose also realised that she had forgotten the Defence Against the Dark Arts book. She told Scorpius to go on ahead and then turned around to go and pick the book up off the floor.

She walked a few steps and looked down, noticing that the book had fallen open at the page about her uncle. She stood still and stared at the picture for a few seconds, thinking at the same time about her family and the letter that she was waiting to receive from her grandmother.

She grabbed hold of the book and closed it.

Rose liked having Scorpius as her friend. She only hoped that nothing would ever get in the way of their friendship.


	14. The Opposite of Invisible

"_You started it!"_

"_No, I didn't! You're the one who came in here!"_

Scorpius tore his eyes away from his History of Magic textbook for a few moments so that he could look over in the direction of the far corner of the Gryffindor common room, where the argument between Albus and James was taking place.

Most of the Gryffindor students in the room also seemed to have stopped what they were doing so that they could stare at the two boys.

He then looked at Rose, who was sitting opposite him in a bright red armchair. Even though her face was almost completely covered by a large library book, Scorpius was certain that she was rolling her eyes.

"James!" she snapped at him from behind her book. "It's only a scarf! And there was no need for you to start shouting at Albus the moment he walked through the portrait hole!"

James threw a glare in her direction, but quickly returned to the argument when Albus shouted something else at him.

"_I came in here to return it, not to start an argument!"_

"_You should have returned it about three weeks ago!"_

After a few seconds, Rose gasped and put her hand to her mouth, as though she only had just realised that she had shouted out loud. As she blushed, she mumbled, "Sorry, Scorpius."

"No problem," Scorpius replied, trying his best not to grin, and briefly wondering why she hadn't apologised to her cousins as well.

He found a lot of Rose's comments funny, and he had seen for himself that she couldn't resist giving her opinion when people were getting on her nerves, but she always seemed to get embarrassed when he was there to overhear her, and she usually apologised to him.

Scorpius knew that it was possible that she got so embarrassed because she didn't know him as well as her cousins, which would be understandable, but it was also possible that she thought that he was more sensitive than certain members of Albus's family, and would therefore get upset by some of the things that she said.

Scorpius was almost tempted to make a joke of it and let her know that if she spent some time with his father or grandfather, she would quickly discover that he wasn't easily offended by the occasional sarcastic comment.

"_I forgot, okay?"_

"_Well, you were apparently wearing it at the Quidditch game the other day, so you can't have forg-"_

"_I've been busy this week…"_

"_You're in first year! What have you been busy with?"_

Fred and Erica also looked fed up with the argument. They were both standing by the common room portrait hole wearing their hats, scarves and cloaks. Every now and again, Erica would tap her watch impatiently and jerk her head in James's direction, whilst Fred would shrug almost apologetically.

Scorpius wasn't sure where Fred and Erica had been planning to go, but he wouldn't be surprised if they attempted to sneak out without James the second nobody was looking at them.

"_Well, _you're_ only in _second year_! It's not like you're busy studying for O.W.L.s or anything…"_

"Some of us are!" one of the older Gryffindor students snapped impatiently from the staircase leading to the boys' dormitories. He held up a fifth year textbook and pointed to its cover before he turned away from them and stormed up the stairs.

"_What's that got to do with anything?"_

"_I'm just saying that I haven't exactly interrupted your studying time, and you're no busier than me!"_

"_Yes, I am! I've had detention with Fred, Erica and Molly every evening this week, and I've had to fit that in with homework and Quidditch practice!" _

James's detention had apparently been the result of a spur-of-the-moment decision to set off enchanted fireworks in the Gryffindor common room at the weekend, as an attempt to make more noise than the Slytherin students celebrating their Quidditch victory.

Fred had spent at least half an hour on Monday morning complaining to Scorpius and Rose about the decision to give him and his cousins a detention, telling them repeatedly that things like that happened all the time in the Gryffindor common room, and that it wasn't as though they had been disturbing anyone, because most of the students had been laughing along and applauding their efforts.

Scorpius had spent the rest of the day wondering how the Gryffindors ever managed to get any work done.

"_It's not _my _fault you got detention!"_

"_I never said that it was!"_

As the argument got even louder, Scorpius was snapped out of his thoughts. He sighed and turned the page of his book.

Albus must have caught a glimpse of the expression on his face, because he threw him an apologetic glance when James paused for breath.

Scorpius shrugged and tried his best to grin at him. He had agreed to go the Gryffindor common room with Albus to give the scarf back to James, and he definitely didn't want Albus to think that he was really annoyed or uncomfortable.

After all, he was used to strange arguments between siblings. He knew from experience that it was perfectly normal for his mum and aunt to be arguing one minute and then strolling around Diagon Alley like best friends the next, and Scorpius was sure that Albus and James would be chatting happily in the school corridors again by Monday morning, just like they were after their last argument.

However, he was now so used to the peace and quiet of the Slytherin common room, where he could sit in his chair by the fireplace and read books or talk to Albus without any interruptions, that the noise in the Gryffindor common room seemed to be ten times louder than it actually was, and it was almost impossible for him to focus on his book or plan his latest essay.

Already, Scorpius couldn't wait to leave so that he could head to Hagrid's with Rose and Albus for their usual Friday afternoon visit, and then return to his own common room later in the evening.

"_James, it's only one small thing, you've done lots of things to annoy me since September and I haven't started argu-"_

"_No, I haven't!"_

"_Yes, you have!"_

"Are you _sure _that you're okay, Scorpius?" a concerned voice whispered to his left.

Scorpius nodded reassuringly at Victoire, who was sitting next to him on one side of the large sofa in the middle of the common room. He also nodded at Dominique, who was sitting on the right hand side of the sofa and looking equally concerned.

Scorpius had got a bit too competitive in his Potions class earlier in the day, and he had thrown a few too many ingredients into his cauldron in an attempt to finish his potion before Albus, which had caused the contents of the cauldron to overflow and spill all over the table, and the thick liquid had covered Scorpius's left hand in the process.

Neither of them looked convinced by Scorpius's nod. Victoire lightly grabbed hold of his hand for what must have been the tenth time that afternoon so that she could inspect it again.

In a way, he was happy that Victoire and Dominique were so concerned about him. When he was at home, he only had to trip up on the stairs and his parents would come running to check that he was okay, and he felt better knowing there that were two older students to look after him when he was hurt or injured at Hogwarts.

However, he wasn't sure that a mild burn on his hand (which Professor Slughorn had immediately provided an antidote for in class) had really merited a trip to the hospital wing with the two girls, especially when the hospital wing had already been overcrowded with students who had genuinely needed treatment for various illnesses, and even though he might have exaggerated his injury ever so slightly when he first spoke to the girls after his class, secretly he agreed with the headmistress's comment that Victoire's tearful reaction when she arrived at the hospital wing had been a slight overreaction (_'And that's putting it mildly, Miss Weasley!')_.

"I'm sure I'll be fine," said Scorpius, trying to sound calm and relaxed so that they would stop worrying about his 'injury', and Rose would stop rolling her eyes at them.

"Well, if it gets any worse, come and find us and we'll go back to the hospital wing with you," Dominique told him.

Victoire nodded in agreement before she added, "Even if it's later on tonight, or early in the morning, it's no problem. The professors won't mind if you're with me, because I'm Head Girl…"

Out of the corner of his eye, Scorpius saw Fred and Erica shake their heads at each other in exasperation.

"_This isn't just about the scarf, Albus, you _always_ borrow my things and forget to return them!"_

"_No, I don't!"_

"_Yes, you do!"_

Now it was Dominique's turn to shake her head in disapproval. "In the space of less than a week," she sighed, "Molly has upset most of the teachers with her Quidditch commentary, four members of our family have been given a week's detention, and now this!" She pointed to Albus and James.

"What's wrong with that?" Fred asked her, actually looking happy about his cousin's update on the past week.

"People will think that this is how our family behaves in public all the time!" Dominique snapped back at him.

"Dominique," Fred told her, looking like he was trying not to laugh, "this _is _how we behave in public most of the time!"

"Speak for yourself," sniffed Victoire, as she adjusted the Head Girl badge on her robes.

Fred started coughing loudly. Between his coughs, Scorpius was sure that he could make out the words 'platform', 'September' and 'Teddy'. He had no idea what the words were supposed to refer to, but for some reason Victoire blushed bright red.

"_Well, maybe if you were a bit more generous and actually allowed me to borrow your things without throwing a tantrum, then there wouldn't be a problem!"_

"_What? I always let you borrow my stuff!"_

"_No, you don't, James! You promised that I could borrow your new broomstick for the first flying lesson-"_

"_I needed that broom for the Quidditch trial!"_

"_And when Dad gave you permission to take his Invisibility Cloak to Hogwarts this year, you told him that you'd let me use it sometimes, but I haven't even seen it since we left for King's Cross back in September!"_

At the mention of the Invisibility Cloak, Scorpius quickly looked up from his book. Before he started at Hogwarts, he had always believed that Invisibility Cloaks were objects that only existed in the many story books lining the bookshelves in his grandparents' drawing-room, or at the very least, they had once existed many years ago but were no longer around.

Even though he had heard a few rumours since his first day at Hogwarts, the thought that a student might actually be able to bring one to school had never really crossed his mind.

He couldn't help wondering if there were other things that existed in the Wizarding World that he had never read about.

Feeling his familiar feelings of fascination and curiosity, he decided that he would definitely have to ask James a few questions about Invisibility Cloaks after the argument was over and he had calmed down.

As he thought about books and cloaks, Scorpius was reminded of Molly's joking comment a few days ago; when certain Ravenclaw students had been talking about her uncle and she said that she wished that she had an Invisibility Cloak when she was in Diagon Alley with her family.

Scorpius had really wanted to say something about that, or at least try to ask Rose a few questions about some of the comments that the group of Ravenclaw students had made, because even though Molly had only been joking, he understood exactly how she and Rose felt.

But Rose had looked so annoyed that he had decided that it wasn't really the right moment to say anything, and he had simply laughed at Molly's joke.

Albus had also started to confide in Scorpius over the past few weeks, telling him in a hushed voice in the Slytherin common room about how it sometimes made him feel slightly uncomfortable when people stared at his parents and aunts and uncles when they were out in public, or when certain witches and wizards assumed that they knew his father because they had read about him in books and newspapers.

Scorpius had nodded along sympathetically as Albus spoke, but he hadn't really known what to say in response.

On the one hand, he knew what if felt like to attract stares in Diagon Alley. It hadn't happened very often over the past few years, but he remembered it happening a lot when he was about five or six years old, especially when he had been shopping with his father or grandfather.

It had been so tempting to find out more information from Albus, who seemed to be one of very few wizards who got annoyed by the same thing as Scorpius in Diagon Alley, because Scorpius had always felt as though the members of his own family were the only ones who attracted so much attention in public.

On the other hand, he doubted that people stared at Albus's father for the same reason that they stared at certain members of Scorpius's family, and he had been reluctant to get into detailed discussions about the adults in Albus's family when he still didn't know any of them personally.

Sometimes, Scorpius thought that it was strange that there was a connection between his friend Albus, who he played games of Wizard's Chess with and shared stories and jokes with in the common room, and the man whose name he had only ever seen on the front page of the _Daily Prophet _when he was very young.

"Not again," his father had always sighed whenever he noticed that there was an article about Harry Potter in the newspaper, usually followed by: "Do they not have _anything_ else to write about?"

Scorpius had always tried to imitate his father when he was younger, so he had eventually started to do the same thing, automatically shouting, "Not again!" every time he saw the name in the _Daily Prophet_, whilst his mother snapped, "Look what you've started now!" at his father from the other side of the kitchen.

It had seemed so funny at the time, but now that Albus, Rose and several of their cousins were Scorpius's friends, the memory worried him.

He knew that his father hadn't got along very well with a lot of witches and wizards back when he was a student at Hogwarts-he had hinted at this often enough-but Scorpius had also noticed that the adults witches and wizards that he had encountered in Diagon Alley who claimed to be close friends of the Potters had never seemed to be particularly keen on his family.

When Albus had first revealed who his father was back on the Hogwarts Express, Scorpius had tensed for a moment, afraid that the second he heard his surname, Albus might react in the same way as the people who had said that they were friends of the Potters and decide that he no longer wanted to talk to him.

It had therefore been such a relief when Albus finally shook his hand.

Scorpius had quickly forgotten about his worries after his arrival at Hogwarts, especially when he was distracted by inventing games to play with Albus and the other Slytherin boys and reading books and writing essays with Rose, but now that Christmas was fast approaching, he had started to think about life outside Hogwarts again, and the prospect of Albus and Rose meeting his family. He really hoped that there would be no more problems in Diagon Alley in the near future.

In the end, the best advice that he had been able to give Albus as they sat by the fireplace (and later to Rose outside the Great Hall) was to just ignore the comments and gossip, the same thing that his mother had always told him to do when he was younger, but he wasn't sure if Albus found this suggestion very useful.

"_I haven't got time for this now, Albus…"_

"James must be getting bored of the argument now…" Dominique whispered to Scorpius with a grin.

"Or he's realised that he probably won't win it," Victoire muttered. She definitely sounded relieved as the noise of their shouting faded slightly, and after one more inspection of Scorpius's hand, she quickly leaned over to grab hold of a book and a roll of parchment that she had placed on a table opposite Rose.

"…_I've got to go to Hagrid's with Fred and Eri-"_

"_Wait a minute, what do you mean _you're_ going to Hagrid's? _I'm _going to Hagrid's with Rose and Scorpius!"_

Scorpius was sure that Rose, Dominique, Victoire, Fred and Erica all managed to sigh in exasperation at exactly the same time.

"_Since when?"_

"_Since every single Friday afternoon since September!"_

"_But he was still feeling ill yesterday when I went, and I wanted to go back to check that he's okay!"_

"_How is it any better if you go when he's ill instead of me?_

James looked offended by Albus's question and started to shout at him again. Scorpius heard a few accusations about incidents that seemed to have happened several years ago, followed by even more angry words about James not sharing and taking things that didn't belong to him, and the Invisibility Cloak was mentioned again.

"James," Victoire told him warningly, "if you don't calm down, I'm going to write to your mother…"

"You wouldn't dare!" James responded as his eyes widened in horror.

"Yes, I would!"

Scorpius felt his own eyes widen in shock at Victoire's threat. If Albus and James's mother was anything like his, then he knew that James would be a lot more worried about her finding out about his argument at Hogwarts than this father.

He had never really understood why so many adults seemed to be wary of his father, as Scorpius knew that he only had to look sad and mutter, "I'm really sorry, Dad…" when he had done something wrong and his dad seemed angry, and it was usually enough to calm him down, and sometimes, it even resulted in ice cream at Florean Fortescue's.

However, even though he tended to confide in his mother first when he was really upset about something, he knew that she could also be stricter, and Scorpius had always put a lot of thought into his apologies to her.

A few weeks after Scorpius received the Howler in October, he had written a letter to his father, remembering his mother's words as he jokingly wrote: _I believe that you're absolutely furious with me…_, before he offered a quick apology, and his father had quickly replied with a few sarcastic comments of his own, reassuring him that he wasn't angry.

But he had taken more time to write a letter to his mother to explain the situation, and he had later panicked all over again when she suggested that she knew something about the exploding potion in the dormitory, as he hadn't wanted her to be angry with him, and he had definitely felt better when she no longer seemed to be annoyed and she started to ask about Albus and Rose in her letters.

"Fine!" James snapped as he glared from Dominique and Victoire to Rose. "All of you take Albus's side, the way you always do! I knew you would!"

Scorpius noticed that James looked genuinely upset at the idea of his cousins defending Albus, and he found himself feeling sorry for him.

He knew that James often said and did things without thinking first, and sometimes he offended people, but at the same time, Scorpius understood the reason why a lot of the students liked him so much.

Even though Albus didn't seem to agree, Scorpius thought that he was funny. He told some good jokes and shared a lot of interesting stories, and there was no doubt that he was a good Quidditch player.

He had also observed that most of Albus's cousins were quick to accuse James when something happened at Hogwarts, and he understood James's anger at being blamed for everything, even if it wasn't always his fault.

"_Look, Albus, you've already wasted most of my afternoon, you're the one who forgot to return my sca-"_

"_And you're the one who overreacted!"_

The shouting was at full volume again. Scorpius wished that Victoire or Dominique or one of the older students would do something to stop the argument…

"_I'm bored of this now; everyone's looking at us-"_

"_That's your fault, not mine!"_

"_And I'm the oldest, and I've already said that I'm going to Hagrid's…"_

"_I haven't seen him since the weekend!"_

"_Well, I want to go!"_

"_So do I!"_

_It's not a serious argument, _Scorpius silently reminded himself. _They'll sort everything out in a minute_…

Perhaps it was the noise of the shouting, or the fact that he had been thinking about his family and events that had happened a few years ago, but all of a sudden he couldn't help thinking about an argument that he had briefly mentioned to Albus on the Hogwarts Express.

It was a memory that he had always tried hard to ignore or forget or simply shrug off like it wasn't important, but it didn't stop him from thinking about it sometimes.

He had been flying, and thinking about Quidditch, and trying to play a game with other children. But then there had been shouting, and accusations, and mentions of his family, and Scorpius had been blamed for things that had happened in the past that he hadn't even known about or understood. The shouting had got louder, and he had got annoyed, and then he had been falling…

"Albus! James!"

Scorpius jumped in shock at the sudden noise from his side of the room. He looked at Rose, thinking that she had been the one to shout the names, but then he realised that the words had left his own lips.

Albus, James and everybody else in the common room went silent, all of them staring at Scorpius.

Scorpius started to blush. Even Rose was staring at him with her mouth open and her eyes wide.

He hardly ever shouted or raised his voice, so he understood their surprise.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, feeling very aware of his audience of Gryffindor students. He had never had to resolve arguments before, especially not in a busy common room, so he didn't really know what to say or do.

Albus, James and a few of the other students continued to stare at him expectantly.

Scorpius thought about the situation for a few seconds. "W-why don't you both go to Hagrid's together?" he eventually asked them, trying his best to sound calm and sure of himself.

He always enjoyed his Friday afternoons drinking tea with Hagrid, but there wouldn't be much room for him and Rose if James and his friends went as well, so it looked like he was going to have to postpone his visit in order to get Albus and James to stop shouting at each other.

"Rose and I don't mind missing out on a visit this afternoon…do we?" he asked her uncertainly, just in case she really did want to go.

"No, definitely not," Rose quickly responded.

"Neither do we!" Erica added, and Fred nodded in agreement. Scorpius couldn't help thinking that they might be relieved to have an excuse to keep out of Albus and James's way for a few hours.

Albus and James eyed each other warily for a few seconds.

"Only if James promises not to start another argument when we're there…" Albus mumbled with his head down and his arms folded.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake!" James scoffed. "_Fine_!" he quickly continued with a heavy sigh when he caught a glimpse of Victoire, who was glaring at him.

James stomped over to the other side of the room to grab his cloak and a pair of gloves before he headed in the direction of the portrait hole.

Albus started to follow him, but James stopped, turned around to face his brother and folded his arms.

"You can't go outside like that!" he snapped.

"What do you mean?" Albus asked him with a frown.

"You're only wearing a cloak! Did you not think to bring gloves, or a scarf? It's freezing out there! You'll catch a cold!"

Before Albus could say anything, James walked over to one of the armchairs, picked up the discarded Gryffindor scarf that Albus had borrowed, and threw it at him. Albus caught it and put it on, but it didn't stop him from throwing a few suspicious glances at his brother.

"Honestly," James sighed, "what would you do without me?"

Albus opened his mouth as though to respond, but he seemed to decide against it at the last second and simply shrugged.

As the two of them walked towards the portrait hole, Rose glared from James to the scarf that Albus was now borrowing again and mumbled a few words that sounded like 'ridiculous' and 'waste of time', and Dominique nodded in agreement.

The boys left, the noise of the portrait moving back into place echoed around the room, and most of the Gryffindor students stopped staring at Scorpius and returned to their books and homework.

"Exploding Snap, anyone?" Fred asked Erica, Scorpius and his cousins, as though nothing had happened.

"Okay!" Erica agreed as she removed her hat and ran to a vacant table to start the game.

Dominique also stood up so that she could join Erica, and after an almost longing glance at her book and parchment, Victoire eventually agreed to play as well.

Scorpius sat in silence for a few moments before Rose walked towards him and placed a reassuring hand on his arm.

"Don't worry about it," she whispered, "they argue like that all the time at home, but they'll calm down after they spend a few hours at Hagrid's…"

Scorpius nodded, hoping that he looked relaxed. He hadn't even realised that he looked so worried.

He allowed Rose to lead him to the table to join in with the game.

"Your hand is okay now, isn't it?" she asked him in a whisper as they sat on the floor.

"It's fine," Scorpius told her, finally able to manage a grin.

It was impossible to prevent every argument, Scorpius decided as they began a loud game of Exploding Snap and Erica started to jokingly accuse Fred of cheating. But maybe he could try his best to stop the shouting and serious accusations, even if it was only for the time being, and maybe he shouldn't worry so much about Christmas and other events in the near future…

"Scorp?" Fred asked him, after he had finished convincing Erica that he wasn't cheating at Exploding Snap, "James and I might play a quick game of Quidditch tomorrow afternoon, and Molly said something about borrowing a few brooms from the broom shed again, so if you, Rose and Al want to play..."

"Scorpius might not be able to fly for a while, because of his injury..." Victoire informed Fred with a stern look.

"He'll be fine!" Fred responded with a casual wave of his hand. "We'll all keep an eye on him!"

Scorpius couldn't help smiling.

No matter what happened, he knew that Albus and the Weasleys wouldn't let him fall.


	15. The Invitation

Rose skipped through the school corridors on her way to the Great Hall for breakfast on Monday morning, with a letter from her grandmother held tightly in her hand.

She grinned to herself as she took in all of the Christmas decorations lining the walls, ceilings and staircases, and she caught a glimpse through one of the windows of the snow falling outside.

Rose loved Christmas, and December had to be one of her favourite months of the year. The fact that she had recently been awarded high marks for her Defence Against the Dark Arts essay made the start of the month seem even better.

She skipped into the Entrance Hall, but had to slow down slightly when Hagrid stumbled past her carrying a huge fir tree. He caught sight of her from behind the tree's thick branches and attempted as best he could to wave whilst keeping hold of the tree.

Rose smiled and waved back. "I can help you, if you want?" she offered, unsure as to whether she really would be much help, given the size of the tree.

"S'alright!" he responded with a grin as he shook his head.

He waved again and headed in the direction of the Great Hall. Rose was happy to see that he definitely looked much better since his recent bout of headaches and bad colds in November.

It was only after a few more seconds of skipping through the Entrance Hall (and a strange stare from Dominique as she walked past her) that Rose suddenly realised how strange she must look, skipping through Hogwarts with a grin on her face. Her cousins Lily and Roxanne were usually the ones who skipped everywhere, not her.

She shrugged, deciding that her behaviour must be due to the excitement of the approaching Christmas holidays.

She slowed down to a more dignified walk and spotted her friends Kate and Ursula standing close to the double doors leading to the Great Hall, both of them huddled behind a copy of _Witch Weekly _magazine.

She walked in their direction, gripping the letter in her hand even tighter.

"Rosie, look!" Kate practically squealed before Rose had even had a chance to say hello.

The girls were looking at a large photograph in the middle of one of the pages, and Ursula held the open magazine out to Rose so that she could see it.

Rose took a deep breath, fully expecting to see a picture of her uncle or another member of her family, followed by an article full of rumours and gossip, but to her relief, it was simply a picture of a male Quidditch player, who only looked a few years older than Victoire.

"Interesting…" Rose responded hesitantly.

Ursula and Kate were fascinated by famous wizards. A week ago, they had talked non-stop in the Ravenclaw common room about the son of the bass player from the Weird Sisters, who seemed to be a fairly famous solo singer in the Wizarding World and had apparently performed in Hogsmeade in November.

The week before, they had been discussing the rumours about the most recent list of famous names to be added to the Chocolate Frog Cards.

Therefore, Rose wasn't really surprised that they were reading about a famous Quidditch player this week, but as usual, she wasn't really sure what she was supposed to say or how she was supposed to react to a picture from a magazine being held up in front of her.

Her Aunt Ginny occasionally introduced her to well-known Quidditch players when she went to watch certain matches with her, and they were always polite to her and Hugo, but even though Rose would never say anything to Kate and Ursula, she had never found them to be as amazing or as fascinating as magazines like _Witch Weekly _always made out.

"Rumour has it that he's just been asked to play for the Chudley Cannons!" Ursula informed her with a grin.

Rose nodded, reading the name again at the top of the article and making a mental note to write a letter to her dad to ask him if this was true.

If this new player helped the Chudley Cannons to finally win the league, then she might be more interested in joining in with the discussions about him.

After a few more minutes of listening to Kate and Ursula talk about Quidditch teams and players, Rose remembered the reason why she had come over to talk to them in the first place.

"Are you both free the day after Christmas?" she asked them, feeling very grown up now that she was inviting her own friends to parties.

The girls shared a mutual look of confusion, but they both nodded.

"My grandparents have a party at their house every year just after Christmas," she explained, "and my cousins always invite a few of their friends, and now that Albus and I are at Hogwarts, we can do the same, so I wanted to invite you…"

Before Rose could finish, Ursula and Kate started jumping up and down and shrieking in excitement at the prospect of attending a party.

Rose stood back and resisted the temptation to cover her ears, but she couldn't help grinning at their reaction. She was looking forward to the party just as much as them, if not more.

After they had calmed down, Rose shared a few of the details about the location. At first, she started to tell them about how they could get to The Burrow by car, but after a blank stare from both girls, she explained that it could also be reached via the Floo Network.

"My dad will probably know how to get there," Ursula shrugged, "he seemed to know a few things about your family when I told him about you and Albus in one of my letters…"

Rose had no idea how Ursula's father might know her grandparents, but she decided that now wasn't the time to find out. She wanted to find Albus and Scorpius in the Great Hall, and she also had to allow enough time to eat breakfast before her first class of the day.

After telling Kate that she would see her in class, and promising to sit with Ursula at lunch, she walked away, leaving the girls in the middle of a discussion about meeting up to go shopping in Diagon Alley before Christmas Day.

As she got closer to the Great Hall, Rose was surprised to see that a few of the students who appeared to have just been in there were covering their ears.

"You might not want to go in there for a few minutes…" an older Hufflepuff student told Rose with a grimace.

She would have asked the student for an explanation, but the moment she opened the double doors, no explanation was necessary…

SIX TIMES! _SIX_! YOU HAVE A BROOMSTICK OF YOUR OWN! THERE WAS NO REASON WHATSOEVER FOR YOU TO GO ANYWHERE NEAR THAT BROOM SHED!

Rose walked slowly into the room and she was almost deafened by the unmistakeable noise of a Howler. She stood there rooted to the spot as the shouting continued.

AND DO NOT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON YOUR QUIDDITCH COMMENTARY! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH OF AN HONOUR IT IS TO BE ASKED TO GIVE A COMMENTARY, MOLLY?

At the mention of her cousin's name, Rose looked over in the direction of the Gryffindor table, trying to find her.

Eventually, she spotted her, calmly eating a piece of toast and reading a copy of _The Quibbler_, apparently oblivious to the red envelope in front of her and the angry voice of Rose's Uncle Percy.

Rose wondered if Hogwarts students were eventually able to ignore the sound of Howlers completely, perhaps after they had received more than twenty.

REGARDLESS OF YOUR OPINIONS OF THE OTHER HOGWARTS QUIDDITCH TEAMS, YOU KNOW VERY WELL THAT YOU HAVE TO REMAIN FAIR AND IMPARTIAL! I AM CERTAIN THAT THE PROFESSORS HAVE REMINDED YOU OF THIS OFTEN ENOUGH!

Rose looked at the High Table, where Neville was sitting with his head in his hands. Hagrid and Professor Flitwick kept throwing him sympathetic glances, but Professor Slughorn looked like he was struggling to supress a smug grin.

Rose couldn't help feeling sorry for her Herbology professor. The Gryffindor students always seemed to receive more Howlers than the students from the other three Houses, and she imagined that it must be really embarrassing for their Head of House whenever this happened.

The fact that the Slytherin students were sitting quietly at their table, most of them wearing innocent expressions as though they never did anything wrong, probably wasn't making the situation any easier for Neville.

AND I HAVE HEARD THAT YOU WERE GIVEN A WEEK'S DETENTION FOR SETTING OFF ENCHANTED FIREWORKS IN THE GRYFFINDOR COMMON ROOM! ENCHANTED FIREWORKS! IN THE _COMMON ROOM_!

"Victoire!" Rose heard Molly call out in a loud whisper.

Victoire, who was sitting further down the table and frantically writing notes from a book at the end of a long roll of parchment, refused to even look up, but Molly continued speaking to her.

"Victoire, if my parents say anything about this during the holidays, will you tell them that I listened carefully to the Howler and looked very serious and apologetic?"

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response," Victoire eventually told Molly with a glare.

IF I FIND OUT THAT THE FIREWORKS WERE FROM YOUR UNCLE GEORGE'S JOKE SHOP, AND THAT YOUR COUSIN FRED WAS IN ANY WAY INVOLVED…

At the mention of his name, Fred looked up from his plate of food and beamed proudly, and James patted him on the back in congratulations.

Rose had heard from Victoire and Dominique that during his first year at Hogwarts, Fred had made a chart to keep a record of the number of Howlers he received from his mother, taking pride in every single one.

She therefore had a feeling that it might be slightly counter-productive for her Uncle Percy to mention Fred in his Howler.

I HOPE THAT YOU WILL APOLOGISE TO THE PROFESSORS, AND TO ANY OF THE STUDENTS YOU MIGHT HAVE OFFENDED…

The Howler seemed to be coming to an end.

…AND I DO NOT EXPECT TO HEAR ANY MORE NEWS ABOUT BROOM SHEDS, OR QUIDDITCH COMMENTARIES, OR FIREWORKS! COUNT YOURSELF VERY LUCKY THAT YOU HAVEN'T LOST YOUR PLACE ON THE GRYFFINDOR TEAM!

As soon as the shouting stopped, Fred jumped to his feet. "Well done, Molly, well done!" he shouted as he applauded.

However, he quickly stopped clapping his hands when he caught sight of Neville, who was glaring furiously at him.

Looking sheepish, he sat back down and pretended to be suddenly very interested in his copy of the _Daily Prophet_.

Most of the students in the Great Hall simply shrugged and went back to eating their breakfast.

Feeling relieved that the shouting was over, Rose walked further into the room. It was only then that she was fully able to appreciate the decorations, especially the holly and mistletoe and several huge Christmas trees.

She spotted Albus and Scorpius playing a game of Wizard's Chess at the Slytherin table. Grinning, she headed in their direction.

"Check," she heard Albus mutter as she approached.

"Good morning!" she greeted the boys brightly.

"Morning," they both responded.

She gave Albus a quick hug before she sat in a vacant seat next to him and helped herself to a few pieces of toast. He had helped her a lot with the reading and research for her Defence Against the Darks Arts essay, and even though she knew that he would never admit that he was at least partially responsible for her high mark, she wanted to let him know that she was grateful for his help.

Scorpius focused his attention on the chess board. Rose had a feeling that he wouldn't be losing the game for long, so, taking advantage of his brief distraction, she discreetly handed the letter from their grandmother to Albus under the table.

Albus frowned at the piece of parchment for a few seconds, but then a look of realisation crossed his face and he unfolded it eagerly, his eyes skimming over the words as he grinned.

As Rose had already invited Ursula and Kate to the party, she knew that it would only be fair for Albus to invite Scorpius. She would also let him invite Colin, if he wanted.

"I already invited the girls," Rose whispered to him, and Albus nodded in understanding.

Scorpius's Knight jumped across three of the squares, and suddenly he was back in the game and waiting for Albus to take his turn.

Albus looked from the letter to the chess board, looking like he wasn't sure if he wanted to continue playing or invite Scorpius to the party first.

"Morning!" Rose heard someone shout from behind her. She looked over her shoulder and saw Fred standing behind her seat.

"I thought that it'd be a good idea to get away from the Gryffindor table for a bit," he explained in barely more than a whisper. "The way Neville keeps glaring at me," he sighed, "you'd think I'd done something wrong!"

Rose had to try her hardest to resist the urge to remind him that he _had_ been involved in the setting off of the fireworks, and he hadn't exactly disagreed with Molly's 'brilliant idea' to borrow brooms from the broom shed.

As soon as James spotted Fred standing by the Slytherin table, he jumped out of his seat and ran over to join him, ignoring another glare from Neville.

"What've you got there?" he asked Albus when he arrived at the table.

"Nothing," Albus replied, quickly covering the letter with his hand, "just a letter from Grandma."

James nodded and opened his mouth as though he was about to make a further comment, but he was interrupted by Fred, who nudged him and gave him a pointed glance.

"Oh yeah, Rosie," he muttered with a bright smile, "congratulations on getting that high mark in your essay! What subject was it, Charms?"

"Defence Against the Dark Arts," Albus corrected him.

"Yeah, that's what I meant," he responded. "Well, congratulations anyway, I knew you could do it! And you too, Al!"

Rose stared at him suspiciously for a few seconds. James hardly ever took an interest in her schoolwork, or Albus's, or his own for that matter.

But then she suddenly understood the reason why he was smiling at her and offering his congratulations. He was trying to make up for his behaviour during his argument with Albus on Friday.

At home, Rose argued and disagreed with James a lot, but they were both too stubborn to apologise directly to each other afterwards. Instead, they usually made more of an effort to be nice to each other in the days that followed.

"Thank you," Rose told him with a grin. "Er…congratulations on not failing your History of Magic essay last week?"

She knew that it sounded more like a question than a statement, but James nodded and smiled proudly.

"Is it true that you own an Invisibility Cloak?" Scorpius suddenly asked James, looking like he had been desperate to ask the question for days.

"Yeah," James grinned, looking thrilled that Scorpius seemed to be so interested in one of his most treasured belongings. "Well, it was my dad's first," he explained, "but he gave it to me as a Christmas present last December, and this September he _finally _gave me permission to take it to Hogwarts. It's been _so _useful this term, you wouldn't believe the things I've-"

"You don't use it to break school rules though, do you?" one of the Slytherin prefects asked James, his tone of voice full of suspicion.

"Oh…no, of course not," James replied.

He might have sounded convincing, if Rose hadn't seen him wink discreetly at Scorpius and Fred as soon as the prefect turned away.

"Anyway," James continued, looking reluctant to say anything else about the Invisibility Cloak when the prefect was still within earshot, "I can tell you a few interesting stories about it at the party after Christmas…"

"What party?" Scorpius asked him with a confused frown.

Albus quickly looked up from the letter with a hint of panic is his eyes. He held up a hand to prevent James from talking, but James apparently hadn't noticed.

"You know, the party just after Christmas at The Burrow that we can all invite friends to? I thought that you'd all been talking about it, because Al's got a letter from Grandma..."

"We were just about to talk about it!" Albus snapped at him.

"_Oh_, have you and Rose not invited him yet?" said James.

"I was just about to!" Albus sighed.

Scorpius still looked confused. "What party?" he asked James again.

"Every year our grandparents organise a party at their house just after Christmas, and we always invite friends from school, and Rosie and Al said that they wanted to invite you, and I suppose it's fairly obvious now that you're invited," James told Scorpius.

Scorpius's eyes widened for a few seconds before he asked, "Really?" As usual, he looked like he couldn't believe that he had been invited to a party.

"Yeah, of course," James answered with a casual wave of his hand.

Scorpius sat in silence for a few moments, as though deep in thought. He looked from James and Fred to Rose and Albus and then finally responded, "Okay, thanks!"

Albus took a few seconds to smile at Scorpius's response before he went back to glaring at James.

Rose looked at Scorpius. Even though he was grinning, he kept looking around at them all with a hint of uncertainty, and he seemed like he was still lost in thought. Rose wondered if he expected one of them to tell him that the invite had only been a joke or that the whole thing had been some sort of misunderstanding.

"Great," James continued, "Rosie and Al will give you the details on how to get there…What?" he finally asked Albus, who was still glaring at him.

"_I _wanted to be the one to invite him!" said Albus.

Rose felt torn between feeling really happy that Ursula, Kate and Scorpius had all agreed to come to the party, and feeling sorry for Albus because he hadn't been able to officially invite his friend.

"What does it matter who invites who?" Fred shrugged, jumping into the conversation to defend James, the way he always did. "Scorp's said that he can go, so let's just look forward to the party! If it makes you feel any better, Al, we'll let you invite Erica for us."

"Erica's been coming to the parties at The Burrow since she was about three years old," Rose reminded them, "I don't think she even needs an invite anymore."

"Well, who else are you going to invite?" James asked Rose and Albus.

"I already invited Ursula and Kate," said Rose, "so now we only have to invite Colin…"

"Why don't you ask him now, Al?" James asked eagerly whilst Scorpius grinned. "He's still eating breakfast over there…Oi, Colin!" he called out at the top of his voice.

Colin turned around in his seat and stared at them with a confused expression from the Hufflepuff table. Most of the other students at the table also stared at James.

Albus folded his arms and glared at his brother again.

"Er…never mind, Colin!" said James as he caught sight of his brother's glare. "Albus and Rose will talk to you later, okay?"

Colin nodded, shrugged and turned around again, looking none the wiser as to what they were talking about.

A few minutes later, Rose noticed him get up out of his seat and head into the Entrance Hall, and she realised that Albus would have to wait until later in the day to invite him.

After they had eaten a few pieces of toast, Scorpius asked, "What time should I arrive at The Burrow for the party?" He still sounded shocked that he was actually going.

"Why don't you get there early in the morning?" James asked him with an enthusiastic grin. "It'd give Fred and I plenty of time to show you arou-"

"Rosie and I can show him around!" Albus interrupted him.

Scorpius looked from one to the other, looking like he didn't know whether to keep grinning or try to say something to prevent an argument.

"Well, I think Fred and I better get to class," said James, sparing Scorpius from having to say anything. "We'll see you all later, okay?"

Rose had a feeling that their decision to leave had more to do with James's reluctance to get involved in another argument with Albus than a genuine desire to get to class on time.

The two of them left the table and practically ran out of the Great Hall, with James muttering something about only trying to help and not being able to say anything right anymore as he headed in the direction of the doors.

Albus sighed, but he didn't have time to make any further comments about James and Fred, because Scorpius pointed to their game of Wizard's Chess and asked Albus if he wanted to finish playing.

Rose finished her breakfast, whilst Albus and Scorpius instructed their chess pieces to move between the squares a few more times before they ended their game.

As the three of them got up out of their seats and headed out of the Great Hall, Rose grinned as she listened to the enthusiastic discussion between Albus and Scorpius about the upcoming party. She was glad that the two of them were walking in front of her when she realised that she had started skipping again.

"You're not annoyed with James, are you?" Scorpius asked Albus uncertainly after a few more seconds of excited discussion.

Albus seemed to be thinking seriously about the question.

"Not really," he eventually responded as they walked into the Entrance Hall and Rose noticed Colin approach them. "He hasn't been _too _bad since the argument, I suppose, and at least he's been trying to be nice, and I don't think he knew that Rose and I hadn't invited you to the party before he mentioned it. Anyway, at least I still get to invite C-"

"Er…" Rose heard Colin interrupt Albus, "James and Fred just told me about some sort of party at your grandparents' house?"


	16. The Potter-Weasley Snowball Fight

"And that's when the Caretaker _and _Peeves caught us, and we got another week's detention!"

James made sure that he sighed dramatically as he finished his story. He was pleased to see that he had the full attention of almost all of his friends at the Gryffindor table, as well as several Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students.

Luckily for him, it was the last Saturday before the Christmas holidays, so most of the students had more time to stay in the Great Hall and share stories at their House tables rather than rushing back to the common rooms to finish their homework.

"Wow," whispered his friend Amelia, as her eyes widened in shock and in what James hoped was admiration. She had left the Hufflepuff table for a few minutes so that she could hear his and Fred's account of their most recent Hogwarts adventure.

Fred, who was sitting in the seat opposite James, nodded in agreement.

"You're lucky that it's almost the end of term, though," Amelia continued, "or I bet your detention would have lasted longer than a week…"

This time, it was James's turn to nod. "Not that I minded too much about the detention," he assured her. "It was worth it, really, because we actually got into the Restricted Section in the Library for a few minu-"

"Yeah, right," James heard a scathing voice mutter behind him. He turned around as a group of fifth year Ravenclaws walked past him on their way out of the Great Hall.

He glared at the older boy who had just spoken. Even though James knew that his father was an Auror like his dad, and he had seen him at a few of the parties at the Ministry of Magic that his parents allowed him to go to, James had never been particularly keen on him or his group of friends.

"Ask the professors who gave us the detention, if you don't believe us!" Fred shouted angrily after the boys.

The rest of the students didn't seem to be paying much attention to the group of Ravenclaws, because the conversation quickly continued.

"But, weren't you hidden under your Invisibility Cloak?" Erica's friend Sarah asked them.

"Yeah, of course" James replied, wondering why the question was even necessary. He and Fred liked to break the rules, but they also liked to make sure that they planned their rule-breaking very carefully, so that they could avoid getting caught by the professors when they were sneaking around school. They didn't mind getting a detention every now and again, but the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team definitely minded when their detentions got in the way of Quidditch practice. Unfortunately, it wasn't always as easy to avoid a certain poltergeist, even with the help of the Invisibility Cloak. "But there were three of us hidden underneath it," James explained, "because I asked Molly to help us as well, so it was more difficult to get it to cover the three people, and then Peeves heard us whispering, and the cloak got caught on one of the bookshelves-"

James stopped speaking when he caught a glimpse of Erica, who was rolling her eyes. As he turned to his left to look at her, she glared back at him, looking furious.

"What?" he asked her with a sigh.

"You could have asked _me _to go with you!" she snapped. "You know how much I want to get into the Restricted Section! You and Fred _never _tell me about anything anymore!"

"It was midnight, on a week night, and you were asleep," Fred told her before James could respond.

"You could have woken me up!" she snapped at Fred.

"Last time we tried to do that, you threatened to hex us," said James.

"Yeah, and the other day, you said that you didn't want to get any more detentions before the holidays," said Fred.

Erica shrugged and went back to eating her lunch in silence, looking up every few seconds to throw yet more glares at James and then Fred. As soon as she finished eating, she got up out of her seat and went to talk to a few of her friends at the Hufflepuff table.

James sighed again. He knew that he would have to try his best to be nice to Erica before they went home for Christmas, so that he could make up for not telling her about the visit to the Restricted Section. If not, there was a risk that she might be angry with him during the Christmas holidays, or worse, at the party at The Burrow.

James knew from past experience that it if there were any arguments on that particular day at his grandparents' house, he would probably be blamed, even though he couldn't see how it was _his _fault that his brother and his cousins _always_ overreacted to his comments and his practical jokes.

He ate a spoonful of his dessert whilst thinking about what he should do. Maybe he would allow Erica to take most of the credit for his end of term practical joke, as soon as he decided what the joke was actually going to be.

It _was_ difficult though, avoiding arguments before the holidays. He had already spent the past few days trying his best to be polite to Albus and Rose, especially after Albus had fallen out with him all over again when he found out that he had mentioned something to Colin about his invite to the party.

James had insisted that Albus was overreacting, because Colin's parents had already attended several parties at The Burrow over the past few years, so he didn't really think that it mattered very much that he and Fred had dropped hints that he was invited to the Christmas party. Unfortunately, Albus hadn't agreed with James's point of view, and he hadn't been very happy with James's use of the word 'overreacting'.

He had then attempted to resolve the situation by inviting Albus to eat at the Gryffindor table one evening; but Albus hadn't looked very impressed then, either. Erica had later told James that this was probably because he and Fred had spent most of the evening telling Albus about how much of an honour it was to be asked to eat with the second year Gryffindors. However, James was already starting to think that no matter what he said or did, he would never be able to completely avoid arguments at Hogwarts with his younger brother.

James was about to help himself to another slice of treacle tart when he was distracted by Fred, who nudged him, looked up and pointed to the Enchanted Ceiling.

James looked up as well. After a few seconds of confusion, he grinned when he realised what Fred was silently trying to tell him.

It had snowed the night before, and judging by the current image on the ceiling above them, the snow was still falling heavily outside.

"Potter-Weasley snowball fight?" James asked his cousin.

Fred nodded eagerly. "You go and ask Victoire, Dominique and Albus," he muttered. "I'll ask Molly and Rose!"

James grabbed his cloak and scarf from the back of his seat and quickly got to his feet, his second helping of dessert already forgotten.

"I'll speak to you all later!" he promised his fellow second years as he left them to find his cousins, and Fred ran in the direction of the Ravenclaw table.

He spotted Molly, who was sitting a bit further down the table. He had barely mentioned the word 'snowball' when she nodded, promised to meet them in a few minutes and then ran out of the Great Hall, shouting something about meeting in the Entrance Hall.

He then spotted Dominique and Victoire, who were sitting on the other side of the table, right at the end. As the girls were sitting quite far away, he knew that it would waste precious time if he had to walk all the way around the table to get close enough to talk to them.

James stopped halfway down the table and looked from the two girls to a few of the empty seats in front of him. He then cast a quick glance at the High Table, where most of the professors seemed to be in deep conversation.

Trying to be as discreet as possible, he climbed up onto a vacant seat at the Gryffindor table.

On any other day, he probably wouldn't have done it, but the table was almost empty today, now that a lot of the students had finished eating, and the teachers didn't seem to be looking in his direction. Besides, Neville had left for the afternoon to meet his wife in Hogsmeade, so it wasn't as though his Head of House was around to get annoyed with him. Maybe if he just climbed over the table…

"James Potter!"

James jumped in shock at the sound of a loud voice coming from the direction of the High Table shouting his name.

He looked over in time to see Slughorn open his mouth to shout again.

_"Get down from that chair at once!"_

James sighed and started to climb down from the chair. Slughorn continued to glare at him until his feet touched the floor.

_Bet you wouldn't have said anything if it'd been one of your precious Slytherins attempting to climb over the table_, James thought sulkily. _You probably would have congratulated them on their quick-thinking and creativity…_

Usually, he would have said something out loud, but the Head of Slytherin House had already taken enough points from Gryffindor over the past few weeks, many of them due to James and Fred's rule-breaking, so James didn't think that it would be fair to say something that might lead to the loss of even more points just before Christmas. After all, Ravenclaw had already overtaken Gryffindor in the race for the House Cup over the past few weeks.

He now had Dominique and Victoire's full attention, so he simply mouthed, "_Snowball fight?_"

Dominique nodded enthusiastically, but Victoire looked slightly hesitant.

James sighed, wishing that his cousin wouldn't act so serious all the time now that she was Head Girl.

It took a few seconds of silence, and a nudge from Dominique, before Victoire finally nodded.

As Victoire and Dominique got up from their seats, James headed towards the Slytherin table, where Albus, Rose and Scorpius were sitting. He tried his best not to run to the table, as he could tell that Slughorn was still watching him out of the corner of his eye.

Albus seemed to watch him suspiciously as he approached, but as soon as James mentioned the snowball fight, he grinned. James wasn't sure he liked that grin; it looked a bit sly, and he had a sneaking suspicion that his brother was planning something. James took the Potter-Weasley games like snowball fights very seriously, but he knew that Albus could be just as competitive as he was when he wanted to be, and when they were competing directly against each other, his younger brother would always try his best to win.

"You too, Scorpius," James told the blond, just in case Scorpius hadn't realised that he was invited to take part in the snowball fight as well. James had seen how good Scorpius's aim was when he scored goals during their informal Quidditch matches, and he was determined to get Scorpius to be on his and Fred's team for this snowball fight, as he had a feeling that his aim would be just as good when he was throwing snowballs at the others.

Again, Scorpius looked taken aback at being included in a Potter-Weasley game.

"If Scorpius gets to play, then Erica should be able to play, too!" Fred whispered bossily to him as soon as James walked away from the Slytherin table and he and Fred met up by the doors to the Great Hall.

"Fine," James sighed, "go and ask your girlfriend to play!"

"She's not my girlfriend!" Fred snapped at him as he started to walk away, but James noticed that he looked a bit embarrassed.

They all met in the Entrance Hall so that they could split themselves into two teams. James instantly chose Scorpius to be part of his team, as well as Fred and also Erica -who had apparently forgotten that she had been angry with James and Fred less than half an hour ago- and Victoire and Dominique decided to go with Albus and Rose. Molly looked between the two teams for a couple of seconds, apparently trying to decide which one had the better chance of winning, but in the end, she shrugged and walked over to Albus and Rose.

James noticed that Albus and Rose's team was bigger than his team by one person, but he chose not to say anything, deciding that Albus had been good enough not to complain about Scorpius being on their side for this particular game, so the least he could do was to avoid causing an argument in the middle of the Entrance Hall about the game being unfair. Besides, he didn't want to show any signs of uncertainty or fear, not when he was so determined to win.

Albus, Rose and the rest of their team all had to go back to their dormitories to get their cloaks and hats and scarves, so James decided that he would use the time whilst they waited to give Scorpius his own unique tour of Hogwarts, with a little help from Fred and Erica.

"We think that there's a secret passage out of Hogwarts just over there!" he informed Scorpius as they strolled along a third floor corridor.

"And another one on the floor below!" Fred added. "We're planning on trying them out one day in the near future…"

Even though Scorpius wasn't speaking much, he seemed to be listening intently, and he widened his eyes in shock or nodded knowingly at the right moments, and unlike Albus and Rose, he actually laughed at James's jokes.

James already knew that he would get along well with Scorpius over the next few years at Hogwarts, and he was glad that Scorpius was his brother's friend, in spite of all the rumours about the Malfoy family that he had heard from other students over the past year.

"And that's where we set off indoor fireworks last year!" Erica jumped into the conversation, interrupting James's thoughts as she pointed in the direction of one of the classroom doors.

"Behind this statue, there's a short cut that leads to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom," Fred continued. "It can be quite useful, when you're late for class and don't want to get another detention."

"And here's the bathroom that accidentally got flooded a few months ago when we were trying to practice a few defensive spells," said James as they came to the end of their tour.

"Oh yeah, I remember that," Erica told James with a grin. "Honestly, though, I still can't believe they took fifty points off Gryffindor; you'd think that we'd blown up one of the toilets or something…"

James slowed down for a few seconds. At the mention of blowing up toilets, a strange plan started to formulate in his mind.

Eventually, he picked up his pace and caught up with Erica, Fred and Scorpius, deciding that he would discuss the outline of his new plan with his fellow Gryffindors later, when Scorpius was out of earshot. He knew that Scorpius found his jokes funny, but he wasn't sure how far his sense of humour would stretch when it came to Gryffindor practical jokes.

As he caught up with the others, James noticed something small and white moving past them out of the corner of his eye. He barely had time to look around, when all of a sudden, dozens of snowballs where hurling towards them from the end of the corridor.

"Cheats!" James managed to shout out, hoping that Albus and the others could hear them, before they all turned around and ran as fast as they could in the opposite direction of the flying snowballs.

James quickly realised that Victoire or Dominique must have bewitched the snowballs to follow them, because wherever they ran, they seemed to be confronted by new sets of snowballs flying through the air. He couldn't help but wish that he hadn't had so many arguments with his cousins over the past few weeks, because he was certain that this was their way of paying him back.

They ended up outside in the courtyard, where the snow was thick on the ground, and the bewitched snowballs seemed to vanish into thin air.

Fred and Erica burst out laughing, the two of them holding on to their stomachs because they were laughing so much. James couldn't help laughing along with them, and even Scorpius managed a grin.

The four of them spotted Albus, Rose, Molly, Dominique and Victoire on the other side of the courtyard, and they hastily made up snowballs to throw at them.

The snowball fight continued for a while in the courtyard, with all of them darting behind nearby trees to take cover every time the snowballs headed in their direction, all the while trying not to slip on the icy ground.

Scorpius was rather quiet the whole time, and he seemed reluctant to join in with the shouting and the name-calling that James was used to hearing during the family snowball fights.

James briefly worried that maybe Scorpius was nervous being around him, because Erica had recently pointed out –much to James's surprise- that he could apparently come across as quite intimidating to certain students sometimes, especially when he was around nervous first years who weren't used to his behaviour; but from what James had seen of Scorpius, this nervous behaviour was perfectly normal for him, regardless of who he was with. James had already reached the conclusion that Scorpius was simply a bit shy, and he hoped that he would become more confident as he spent more time with them all.

Eventually, the snowball fight moved out of the courtyard and further into the school grounds, with James, Fred, Erica and Scorpius chasing after Albus and the others.

It was only after a few more minutes of throwing snowballs around and hiding behind various trees that James realised that Albus's team was out of sight, and he had no idea which direction they had all headed in.

"Break?" he suggested to his own team, deciding that now was as good a time as any to have a rest.

They all nodded in agreement and headed in the direction of Hagrid's cabin, hiding around the back just in case the others returned before they sat down on one of the logs that hadn't been covered by snow.

Just to be on the safe side, James pulled out his Invisibility Cloak from where he had been hiding it in a large pocket of his winter cloak, and, enjoying the way that Scorpius was staring at the Invisibility Cloak in fascination, he tried his best to get it to cover the four of them.

Then, he reached into his pockets again so that he could find the three tiny bottles of Butterbeer that Molly had brought back for him from Hogsmeade as an early Christmas present.

He handed one bottle to Scorpius, who nodded gratefully; then, after a few seconds of staring at the remaining two bottles, he shrugged and handed them to Fred and Erica.

"Ah, James, you shouldn't have!" Fred and Erica called out sarcastically, laughing as they mockingly put their hands over their hearts before patting James on the head. "So sweet!" they continued, whilst James rolled his eyes and told the two of them to shut up. However, he knew from the expressions on their faces that they were genuinely grateful for a few sips of the Butterbeer to help warm themselves up.

"James, you cheat!" he heard his brother's voice shouting somewhere in the distance.

James smirked triumphantly. Judging by the anger in Albus's voice, he had no doubt worked out that he was using the Invisibility Cloak to help his team to stay hidden.

"Well, _you_ cheated at the start of the game with the bewitched snowballs!" he called out in response, laughing to himself as he thought about how annoyed Albus must be, being able to hear his voice but not being able to see him. "So, now we're even!"

He noticed that Scorpius was smiling in between taking sips of Butterbeer. "So," James asked Scorpius, as soon as Erica and Fred had stopped laughing, "are you looking forward to the party at The Burrow?"

Scorpius nodded. "Definitely," he responded, sounding like he couldn't wait. "Although," he continued, now sounding a bit nervous, "I've never really been to parties with lots of witches and wizards before-"

"Really?" James asked in a tone of disbelief. He knew who Scorpius's parents were, and he was sure that most witches and wizards from pure-blood families attended parties and gatherings on a regular basis.

"Well, my parents invite a few of their friends to parties every now and again," Scorpius answered; "but not that many, and from what Albus and Rose have said, the parties at The Burrow sound…different to what I'm used to."

"It'll be fine," Erica muttered as she patted Scorpius's arm; "there's nothing to worry about; everybody at The Burrow will be friendly. And, you've got us to look after you, anyway."

"Yeah," James agreed. As he took in the anxious expression on Scorpius's face, and he thought about pure-bloods and Scorpius's family, he was suddenly reminded of all of the stories that he had overheard about the Malfoys, and even a few of the stories that his dad had told him, when James asked him directly. He also thought about how angry his Uncle Ron and various other members of his family always got whenever the name 'Malfoy' was mentioned, and also the information about the Malfoys and other former Slytherins that he had read and glanced over in a few of the books in the Restricted Section last night.

James had grown up overhearing negative comments about Slytherin House, and even now, he wasn't particularly fond of the Slytherins, especially after a year of constant arguments with a lot of them, but he liked Scorpius; he thought that he was different to most of the Slytherins that he and Fred always fell out with, and as far as he was concerned, it didn't really matter about his family and the past, as long as Scorpius got along well with Albus and Rose.

"And, you know," James continued, trying his best to sound reassuring, "all of that stuff about your family, it doesn't matter at all-"

He was abruptly cut off by Erica, who was shaking her head frantically and waving her arms behind Scorpius's back.

"Er, what I mean is," James backtracked, unsure as to why Erica was panicking so much about what he had been about to say, but at the same time trusting that she usually knew best when it came to sensitive situations like these, "it doesn't matter that your family doesn't usually throw big parties like the ones at The Burrow, or that you aren't used to being around strangers, because we'll be there to introduce you to everyone, and to look out for you…"

Scorpius continued to stare at James with a confused expression for a few more seconds, and he looked like he really wanted to say something, but in the end he seemed to accept James's explanation, because he simply smiled and muttered, "Thanks."

Erica rolled her eyes at James, and he was about to ask her what he had done wrong when they heard the sound of footsteps close by.

"I think our break's over," Fred whispered as James nodded and removed the Invisibility Cloak.

He stuffed it back into his pocket whilst the others gathered up snow to make more snowballs.

When they were all prepared, they jumped out from behind Hagrid's hut, shouting in excitement as they started to throw snowballs at two people standing a few feet away, whilst Scorpius walked hesitantly behind them.

It was only after they had thrown at least five snowballs that James widened his eyes in shock and realisation and he skidded to a halt, almost falling over in the process.

As Neville Longbottom turned around, Fred and Erica also realised that the victims of their snowball attack definitely weren't Albus or Rose, or any of James's other cousins.

Neville's wife Hannah stood further away from them all, looking like she wasn't sure whether to grin or to roll her eyes, and James realised that they must have been on their way back to Hogwarts after an afternoon in Hogsmeade.

Neville tried his best to brush the snow off his cloak before he folded his arms and looked right at James with his usual I'm-very-disappointed-in-you expression.

James sighed to himself. That expression was always a lot worse than Slughorn's angry outbursts, and the last thing he wanted was for Neville to ruin what had been a really good afternoon by taking more points away from Gryffindor.

"Do I even want to know, James?" Neville asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Potter-Weasley and er..Malfoy snowball fight," James mumbled, hoping that this explanation would be enough.

Scorpius was staring at the floor, but James couldn't help noticing that a smile seemed to be forming at the corner of his lips.

"Come on, Neville, it's nearly Christmas! Besides, you can't take _more _points from your own House!" Fred spluttered, instantly leaping to James's defence, the way James had known that he would.

He grinned at his cousin, but that seemed to attract another irritated glance from Neville.

Neville looked back at Hannah, who grinned and shrugged. He then looked from James and Fred to Scorpius, before he nodded, as though something suddenly made sense to him. "Just be careful, okay?" he told James in a warning tone of voice. "I don't want you throwing snowballs at the other students, or disturbing Professor Hagrid…"

With that, he walked away from them, with Hannah waving and shouting, "Merry Christmas!" as they both headed back to the castle.

James had a strange feeling that they might not have got away with it so easily if Scorpius hadn't been with them, but he wasn't about to think too much about that theory at the moment. Instead, he breathed a sigh of relief. "That was a close call," he mumbled, and the others nodded. "Shall we continue?" he asked, refusing to be put off from winning the game when he spotted Albus, Molly and Victoire in the distance.

Fred and Erica looked doubtful for all of two seconds before they nodded in agreement and ran off towards Albus and the others.

James instantly took off after them.

For a few moments, Scorpius stayed rooted to the spot, but as James looked back at him, the Slytherin shrugged and started to move. James grinned as he heard footsteps approach, knowing that Scorpius had fallen into step behind him.


End file.
